Running a dtSearch

Use dtSearch to complete stemming, fuzzy, and proximity searches on the information included in your dtSearch index.

Running a dtSearch in the search panel

To run a dtSearch in the Search panel from the Documents list in Relativity:

  1. Navigate to the search panel.
  2. Click Add Condition.
  3. Select (Index Search) from the Add Condition drop-down list.
    The (Index Search) window opens.
  4. Select the name of your dtSearch index from the Index drop-down list.
  5. Enter terms for the search in the Search Terms box.
    Notes:
  • You can enter search terms on multiple lines (i.e., hit Enter), but the hard return will not be treated as an AND / OR operator.
  • dtSearch indexes are case insensitive by default. All characters in a dtSearch index are normalized to lowercase. For example, if your exact phrase search is an acronym like ACT, you must build a case-sensitive dtSearch index.
  • Your total number of search terms cannot exceed 65,000 characters. Additionally, words longer than 32 characters are truncated during indexing. For more information, see Searching for words longer than 32 characters.

The following table shows search string examples and their expected results. For more information, see Using dtSearch syntax options.

Search String Returns Documents With...
apple pear The exact phrase apple pear
"apple pear" The exact phrase apple pear
apple AND pear The word apple and the word pear
(apple and pear) AndAny (grape or banana) Any document that contains apple and pear, with grape and banana also being counted as hits. Grape and banana aren't evaluated as conditions; they're simply added to the search results as optional terms to be highlighted if they appear in the document.
apple OR pear Either apple or pear
apple W/5 pear Apple appears within 5 words of pear
apple PRE/5 pear Apple appears within 5 words before pear
Note: Relativity does not use the POST operator. However, you can mimic this functionality by reversing the order of the terms, and using the PRE operator.
apple NOT W/5 pear Appleoccurs not within 5 words of pear
apple AND NOT pear Apple appears but pear does not
apple W/5 xfirstword Apple appears in the first 6 words of the document
apple w/5 xlastword Apple appears in the last 6 words of the document

You can access stemming or fuzziness for key terms by checking the Enable Stemming box or selecting a Fuzziness Level in the drop-down list.

Index Search window

  1. (Optional) Add any additional search conditions.
  2. Click Apply.
    The search terms populate in the Search builder.
  3. Click Run Search. To stop a long running search, click Cancel.

Note: Click the Sort by rank checkbox to sort the results by order of relevance in relation to the search terms. The most relevant documents are listed at the top of the results set, with the least relevant documents, or the documents with the smallest number of keywords, is at the end of the list.

Running a dtSearch in the Search Browser

To run a dtSearch in the Search browser:

  1. Click dtSearch magnifying glass icon.to access the Search browser from the Documents List.
  2. Click New Search.
  3. Enter required fields in the Information card.
  4. Click Add Condition.
  5. Select (Index Search) from the Add Condition drop-down list.
    The (Index Search) window opens.
  6. Select the name of your dtSearch index from the Index drop-down list.
  7. Enter terms for the search in the Search Terms box.

Note: You can enter search terms on multiple lines (i.e., hit Enter), but the hard return will not be treated as an AND / OR operator.

Note: Your total number of search terms cannot exceed 65,000 characters.

The following table shows search string examples and their expected results. For more information, see Using dtSearch syntax options.

Search String Returns Documents With...
apple pear The exact phrase apple pear
"apple pear" The exact phrase apple pear
apple AND pear The word apple and the word pear
(apple and pear) AndAny (grape or banana) Any document that contains apple and pear, with grape and banana also being counted as hits. Grape and banana aren't evaluated as conditions; they're simply added to the search results as optional terms to be highlighted if they appear in the document.
apple OR pear Either apple or pear
apple W/5 pear Apple appears within 5 words of pear
apple PRE/5 pear Apple appears within 5 words before pear

Note: Relativity does not use the POST operator. However, you can mimic this functionality by reversing the order of the terms, and using the PRE operator.
apple NOT W/5 pear Apple does not appear within 5 words of pear
apple AND NOT pear Apple appears but pear does not
apple W/5 xfirstword Apple appears in the first 6 words of the document
apple w/5 xlastword Apple appears in the last 6 words of the document

You can access stemming or fuzziness for key terms by checking the Enable Stemming box or selecting a Fuzziness Level in the drop-down list.

Index Search window

  1. (Optional) Add any additional search conditions.
  2. Click Apply.
    The search terms populate in the Search builder.
  3. Click Save or Save As.
  4. Select the name of the dtSearch in the Search Browser.
  5. Click Run Search. To stop a long running search, click Cancel.

Note: Tap on the Sort by Rank check box beneath the search box to sort the results in order of the most relevance to your search terms. The most relevant documents are listed at the top of the results set, with the least relevant documents, or the documents with the smallest number of keywords, is at the end of the list.

Searching for words longer than 32 characters

When a word has more than 32 characters (none of which are whitespace, characters in the CJKRanges section, or symbols configured as spaces), dtSearch truncates the word and only indexes the first 32 characters. As a result, if you run a search on the first 32 characters, the search returns any words with 33 or more characters that contain the search term as the first 32 characters.

If you attempt to run a search with a string of 33 characters or more, dtSearch does not return any results because it does not truncate the query, and as we’ve seen, no word is longer than 32 characters. See below examples for reference.

Search Length (in characters) Returned results
supercalifragilisticexpialido 29 supercalifragilisticexpialido
supercalifragilisticexpialidoc 30 supercalifragilisticexpialidoc
supercalifragilisticexpialidoci 31 supercalifragilisticexpialidoci
supercalifragilisticexpialidocio 32

supercalifragilisticexpialidocio

supercalifragilisticexpialidociou

supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

supercalifragilisticexpialidociou 33 NO RESULTS
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious 34 NO RESULTS
    Notes:
  • if you include a wildcard (*) after the 32nd character, you will get the exact same results as if you omitted the wildcard.
  • You can use the following regular expression to search your dictionary for all 32-character words: ##.{32}