Free-Form Search Operators (SAP Library - MDM Data Manager Reference Guide: Part 1)

Free-Form Search Operators

Free-Form search includes a wide range of operators specific to each particular type of data, as summarized in the tables below for the keyword search operators, the literal search operators (including the special operators for date fields) for each of the field and attribute types, and the expression search operators.

Keyword Search Operators

Field Type	Operator	Match a record if it contains keywords that…	Legal Values
Keyword Text Block¹ Copy Block¹ Text HTML¹	Progressive	Attempt in sequence to: 1. Match the root of specified words (if stemming installed) 2. Equal match the words	Text, numeric or measurement string
	keyword contains	Contain the specified words
	keyword starts with	Start with the specified words
	keyword equals	Equal the specified words
	keyword sounds like	Sound like the specified words

¹Text Block, Copy Block and Text HTML fields also support is NULL as shown in the table below.

Literal Search Operators (All Data Types except Date)

Field Type	Operator	Match a record if the field…	Legal Values
Text	contains	contains the specified string	Text or numeric string
	starts with	starts with the string
	ends with	ends with the string
	equals	exactly matches the string
	excludes	does not contain the string
	sounds like	sounds like the string
Integer Numeric/Real¹ Measurement¹ Currency	=	equals the specified value	Numeric or measurement value
	<	is less than the value
	<=	is less than or equal to the value
	>	is greater than the value
Time	>=	is greater than or equal to the value	Time value
Timestamp	<>	is not equal to the value	Timestamp
Date	See table Literal Search Operators (Date Data Type) below.
Boolean	equals	is TRUE (FALSE)	TRUE or FALSE
All	is NULL	does (not) have an assigned value	No or Yes

¹ Measurements support MDM measurement search across different units of measure.

Note

The sounds like search operator only works on lower ASCII characters; sounds like searches that include upper ASCII (for example, ß, ç, æ, å) or Unicode characters will not yield any search results. In addition, when comparing words to determine equivalence, it uses only the first four consonants (where consonant groups such as “ch” or “gh” are treated as a single consonant) and ignores vowels (except to use them indirectly to alter the sound of consonants).

Literal Search Operators (Date Data Type)

Field Type	Operator	Match a record if the field…	Legal Values
Date	ABS=	equals the specified date value	Date value (mm/dd/yyy)
	ABS<	is less than the value
	ABS<=	is less than or equal to the value
	ABS>	is greater than the value
	ABS>=	is greater than or equal to the value
	ABS<>	is not equal to the value
	range	is within the specified date range (between)	Current Month Next Month Prior Month Current Year Next Year Prior Year Custom+ Date value pair (mm/dd/yyyy) (mm/dd/yyyy)
	REL=	= the specified date relative to today	Today Tomorrow Yesterday Current Month Next Month Prior Month Current Year Next Year Prior Year Custom + integer value + date unit (days, months, years)
	REL<	< the specified date relative to today
	REL<=	<= the specified date relative to today
	REL>	> the specified date relative to today
	REL>=	>= the specified date relative to today
	REL<>	<> the specified date relative to today
	Is NULL	does (not) have an assigned value	No or Yes

Note

Each type of date operator accepts a different type of compound value for the operand:

■ Absolute comparison operators take a single explicit mm/dd/yyyy date value.

■ Range operator takes a period from the drop-down list, or Custom and a pair of mm/dd/yyyy date values).

■ Relative comparison operators take a period from the drop-down list, or Custom and an integer value (positive or negative) and date unit from the drop-down list to specify a point in time relative to today.

Expression Search Operators

Field Type	Operator	Match a record if the expression evaluates to…	Legal Values
Expression	is TRUE	TRUE	n/a
Expression	is FALSE	FALSE	n/a

Note

Being able to search for NULL values – in both drilldown and free-form search – makes it easy to search for missing data values.