Date and Time Search Examples

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Go through the following Date and Time Search Example for clear understanding.

Date and Time Search fields will often be linked to an Index field with the same Accuracy. However, this is not required and it is possible to link a Date and Time Search field with Month Accuracy to an Index field with Day Accuracy. It is also possible (although less common) to link a Date and Time Search field with Day Accuracy to a Date and Time Index field with Year Accuracy. The examples below will explain the results the Searching Client user should expect.

Month Accuracy Search Field with Day Accuracy Index Field

When you create a Date and Time Search field and set the Accuracy, you are setting the Accuracy of the Date and Time data you put in the Search string – not the Accuracy of the search results.

Consider a Date and Time Index field which Day Accuracy. It is used to Index (and store) the following data (assume DD/MM/YYYY):

03/05/2000
25/05/2000
25/12/1999

A Search Template is created with a Date and Time Search field with the Accuracy set to Month. This Search field is linked to the Index field described above.

When entering Dates for which to Search, the user must enter a value for the Month and for the Year (or a wildcard character). A day cannot be specified because the search field has Month Accuracy. Therefore, the following searches are valid:

2000 – searches for all dates and times in the year 2000.
Returns 03/05/2000 and 25/05/2000.
05/2000 – searches for all dates and times in May 2000.
Returns 03/05/2000 and 25/05/2000.
May ? – searches for all dates and times in May of all years.
Returns 03/05/2000 and 25/05/2000.

Note: 07/? is an invalid search in a Month accuracy field because it’s ambiguous. It could mean the 7th day of any month or it could mean the 7th month in any year. However, the search July ? would be allowed because it clearly specifies the month of July in any year.

In the examples above, although a Month Accuracy Date and Time field was used to search for data, the Day/Month/Year was returned in the search results because the data was Indexed with Day accuracy.

Month Accuracy Search Field with Day, Month & Year Accuracy Index Fields

When a Month Accuracy Date and Time Search field is linked to multiple Index fields (each having a different Accuracy), it is possible to search all the Index fields with the search criteria.

It is not possible to use a wildcard character for the Year of a Time Accuracy field. Therefore, when a Date and Time search field is linked to multiple Date and Time Index fields take care when also linking the Search field to a Time Accuracy Index field, as it will mean the Year part of the Search field cannot be wildcarded. See Table 212 "Wildcard Operators: Date and Time Fields" for more information.

For example, consider a Month Accuracy Date and Time Search field which is used to find a chosen Month and Year Index value from any of the Date and Time Index fields with Accuracy Day, Month and Year.

Three pages are Indexed with the following values:

Page 1

Day: 02/08/2012
Month: August 2011
Year: 2012

Page 2

Day: 15/08/2012
Month: July 2010
Year: 2009

Page 3

Day: 02/08/2012
Month: August 2011
Year: 2012

The Search field is linked to all three Index fields. Since the Search field has Month Accuracy, the following searches are valid:

August * – searches for August in any year.
Returns three results as each page included an Index value of August.
2009 – searches for any month in 2009.
Returns one result as only one page included an Index value of 2009.
2011 – searches for any month in 2011
Returns two results as two pages included an Index value of 2011

The results are displayed as multiple field values. There are two options for setting the display for Show Multiple Field Values – Expanded Grid Row and Popup Window. The Show Multiple Field Values option can be found on the Search Results tab of the Search Template Editor.