Basics

Sun Search Basics

By default, the search is based on a Boolean AND. Thus, only documents that include all of your search terms (or words) are returned in the search results. To broaden the search, include fewer words. To narrow the search, include more words.

Constructing a Search

To get the most out of your Sun Search, choose your search terms and phrases carefully. Keep these tips in mind:

Be specific. Search for words that are unique and try adding descriptive words. For example, a search for java may give you too many results. If you're really looking for Java IDE, specify java ide or java development tools.

Try a synonym. If you get too few or too many results, try using a synonym for your original words. For example, instead of searching for java classes, try java training.

Use an alias. Sometimes a product can known by a more than one name. For example, even though the product name is Java Platform, Standard Edition, you can find additional information by searching for j2se, jdk,j2sdk, j2se, etc.

Check your spelling. A single misspelled or mistyped word can change your results. It's easy to overlook transposed letters: java virtaul machine gives very different results than java virtual machine. Likewise, it's easy to omit a letter: solars looks very similar to solaris, but the results are not.

Check your spacing. Some product names do not have a space: StarOffice is the correct product name, not Star Office. Other product names do have a space: Sun Fire servers, not SunFire servers.

Exact Phrase Search

Adding quotation marks when you are searching on multiple terms will yield results that contain that exact phrase. For example, searching for "enterprise workgroup solutions" yields results that contain the exact phrase enterprise workgroup solutions.

Common Words

By default, common words such as "where" and "how" are ignored because they tend to slow down your search without improving the search results. However, if a common word is required to obtain the desired search results, you can include it by preceding the word with a plus sign (+) . For phrases that include common words, enclose the phrase in quotation marks.

For example, the search query install netbeans +how +to yields search results that must include the common words "how" and "to". Alternatively, you could enclose the phrase "how to" in quotation marks, as in the search query install netbeans "how to".

Excluded Words

If you do not want a certain word to appear in the search results, precede the word with a minus sign (-) . The search results will prefer documents with that word excluded, though the word isn't necessarily excluded in all cases. For example, the search query javabeans -enterprise yields search results that prefer documents that contain the word "javabeans" but exclude the word "enterprise".

Search Query Examples

Search Term/Phrase	Expected Results
servers	Restricts the search to pages that contain the term servers.
entry servers	Restricts the search to pages that contain the terms workgroup AND servers.
entry OR high-end servers	Restricts the search to pages that contain the terms entry OR high-end AND servers This is an example of using the Boolean OR operator.
"workgroup solutions"	Restricts the search to pages that contain the exact phrase "workgroup solutions."
"java platform" edition	Restricts the search to pages that contain the exact phrase "java platform" AND the term edition.
javabeans -studio	By using the exclusion operator (-), this search would be restricted to pages that contain the term javabeans but exclude those pages that contain the term studio. Note: the exclusion operator must be used in conjunction with other terms. No results will be found if the excluded term is used on its own (e.g., -studio yields no results by itself).
network storage -"storedge a5000"	You can also use the exclusion operator to exclude entire phrases. In this example, the search would be restricted to pages that include the terms network AND storage but exclude pages that contain the phrase "storedge a5000."
intitle:software white papers	Using the `intitle:` operator searches a page's HTML title only. This query will restrict the search to pages that contain the term software in the title and contain the terms white and papers anywhere else in the page.
allintitle:software white papers	Using the `allintitle:` operator searches a page's HTML title only. This query will restrict the search to pages that contain the terms software white papers is in the title. Using `intitle:` in front of each individual term is equivalent to preceding all terms with the `allintitle:` operator.
inurl:java software	Using the `inurl:` operator searches a page's URL only. This query will restrict the search to pages that contain the term java in the URL and contain the terms white and papers anywhere else in the page. This operator works on words, not URL components such as punctuation. Slashes ("/"), for example, are ignored.
allinurl:java software	Using the "allintitle:" operator searches a page's URL only. This query will restrict the search to pages that contain the terms java AND software is in the URL. This operator works on words, not URL components such as punctuation. Slashes ("/"), for example, are ignored. Using `inurl:` in front of each individual term is equivalent to preceding all terms with the `allinurl:` operator.
link:java.sun.com link:www.sun.com	Using the `link:` operator restricts the search to all pages that link to the web site in the query. When using this operator you must include a subdmain for the page your are searching for. For example: link:www.sun.com/tryandbuy/ or link:www.sun.com/x64/index.jsp No other search term can be appended to this search operator and the specified web site.