HOW TO COMPOSE VERONICA QUERIES The search understands the logical operators AND, NOT, OR, (, and ). Adjacent keywords without an intervening logical operator are treated as though conjoined by an AND. Interpretation of the query starts from the right-hand, interpreting operators as encountered. If in doubt about order of interpretation, USE PARENTHESES! Search keywords are NOT case-sensitive. *** RESTRICTING THE SEARCH TO CERTAIN GOPHER TYPES You can limit the data returned by veronica to certain gopher item types. This restriction is done by adding a -t type specifier to your query. The -t flag may appear anywhere in the search specification. For instance: "women -t1" returns links to gopher DIRECTORIES whose name contains "women". "-t1 women" does exactly the same thing. NOTE that there must NOT be any spaces between the -t and the type specifier. You may specify MORE THAN ONE type in the query. DO NOT use separate -t specifications to do this; simply put all the types together (with no spaces) after the -t. For example: "-ts1 mac" returns links to gopher DIRECTORIES or SOUNDS with the word "mac" in the name. "women -t18" returns links to gopher DIRECTORIES or TELNET links, whose name contains the word "women". Official gopher types, from the Gopher Protocol Document, are: 0 item is a file 1 item is a directory 2 item is a CSO (qi) phonebook server 3 ERROR 4 item is a BinHexed Mac file (discouraged) 5 item is a DOS binary archive of some kind (discouraged) 6 item is a Unix uuencoded file (discouraged) 7 item is an Index-Search server 8 item is a pointer to a telnet session 9 item is a binary file of some sort + redundant server ( same a previous server ) *** USING THE OPTIONS Just include the options in the search query. They will work with any gopher client. You can put options before the query words, after the query words, or even between query words. DO NOT cluster more than one option behind a single hyphen; instead, use a separate hyphen for each separate option. For example: gopher -t1s -l -m400 This example requests 400 items containing the word "gopher", and specifies that we want only items whose type is "directory" or "sound", and that we want a link-file containing the results. *** EXAMPLES: Simple examples: Search on the keyword "internet". This will return a menu list of (at most) 200 records that have the word internet in the title field. Just type- internet Search on the keyword "internet", but specify 1000 items instead of the default 200. type- internet -m1000 or -m1000 internet Search on the keywords "chicken" and "wine". This returns a menu list of (at most) 200 records that have _BOTH_ "chicken" and "wine". Type- chicken and wine Search for the keywords "chicken" or "wine", specifying directories only. This returns a menu list of records that have _EITHER_ chicken or wine, and which are GOPHER DIRECTORY entries. Type- chicken or wine -t1 or -t1 chicken or wine Examples for the operator "NOT": To use the operator "NOT" in a query: chicken not wine (will search for all titles with the word chicken _BUT NOT_ the word wine) chinese food not msg (will search for our health nuts all the titles with the words chinese _AND_ food _BUT NOT_ msg. Remember there is an implied _AND_ between two words) Examples for infix queries: The parentheses allow more complicated searches that were not available in previous versions of the perl veronica server. examples: chicken (wine or curry) -m (will list ALL titles with the words chicken _AND_ either wine _OR_ curry. -m asks for ALL records.) (chicken or wine) not (msg or growing) (will search for titles with the words chicken _OR_ wine _BUT NOT_ msg _OR_ growing) Examples for word stemming The metacharacter "*" matches anything at the TRAILING END of a search word. chicken* (will search for all titles with the word chicken, chickens, ...) chicken* or wine* (will search for all titles with the word chicken, chickens, ... _OR_ wine, wines, wineries, ...) (chicke* or wine*) not (msg* or growing* and good*) (this query results are left to the curious) Fred Barrie and Steve Foster