The GEI Search allows both simple and complex string-searching across the corpus of documents in the database.

1. Kind of searches

– Use the simple search by entering characters into the search box and clicking Search. It will return all documents containing that sequence of characters anywhere in the documents in the database.

– Phrase searching operates on complete words. It is indicated using quotation marks.

For example, searching for “κατὰ τὰ ἐφσεφισμένα” will return only documents that contain that exact phrase.

1. Wildcards

– To perform a single character wildcard search use the “?” symbol. For example, to search for δῆμος or δᾶμος you can use the substring δ?μος.

– To perform a multiple character wildcard in the middle of a term search use the “*” symbol.

Multiple character wildcard searches looks for 0 or more characters. You cannot use the wildcard searches as the first character of a search.

For example, searching for the substring δ*μος will return documents containing the words δῆμος, δημόσιος, δᾶμος and δασμός.

1. Boolean operators

Boolean operators allow terms to be combined through logic operators. The GEI Search supports and, or, not as Boolean operators (Note: Boolean operators must be lower case).

– The or operator links two terms and finds a matching document if either of the terms exist in a document.

For example, to search for documents that contain either βουλή or δῆμος use the query:

βουλή or δῆμος

– The and operator matches documents where both terms exist anywhere in the text of a single document.

For example, to search for documents that contain both βουλή and δῆμος use the query:

βουλή and δῆμος, or βουλή & δῆμος

– The not operator excludes documents that contain the term after not.

For example, to search for documents that contain βουλή but not δῆμος use the query:

βουλή not δῆμος

Note: The not operator cannot be used with just one term.

For example, searching for: not δῆμος will return no results.

1. Search by fields

GEI Search supports fielded data. When performing a search you can either specify a field, or use the default field.

To search by field just enter the substring of characters into the search box and select the field name in the string below.

GEI Search allows string-searching by text, description, layout, origin, findspot, current location, bibliography, editions, translation, commentary, apparatus, and all fields, which includes all the above mentioned fields.

1. Search by date

GEI Search supports string-searching by date. When performing a search by date just enter the substring of characters into the search box and then enter a date (in numbers) after and/or before the chronological range you are looking for in the date boxes, by specifing if they are BC or AD.