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Aerodynamisist
3rd Sep 2010, 05:29
How do you use the search function on PPrune effectively,

There are a few bit's and pieces I have seen on pprune in the past which I want to look up, rather than post again and be lambasted for not using the search function I was hoping some boffin's and moderators would give us some tips on how to work the search function better.

john_tullamarine
3rd Sep 2010, 05:46
Only a mug punter myself with the search process. However, one needs to be aware that a search can only return a maximum number of hits (500, as I recall). If your subject has more than this then you have to be a bit sneaky and set up back to back searches .. eg,

(a) always use the advanced search option. Then, you might do

(b) one search at one year and later, with a second at one year and earlier, with all forums selected, or

(c) do something similar, but with restricted forum, or groups of forums, applicability.

(d) try a concatenated search using both keyword and username. Keep in mind that you have an option for searching title or post and posts or threads.

Using some of the tricks above lets you get back to the early dates.

Keep in mind that there were some monumental crashes in the early days and older threads may be lost forever.

Steve888
3rd Sep 2010, 05:49
You can also use Google by putting site:pprune.org at the beginning of your query.

This is dependent on google indexing new posts however, but for old posts it works quite well.

tail wheel
3rd Sep 2010, 08:51
concatenated:
In computer programming, string concatenation is the operation of joining two character strings end-to-end. For example, the strings "snow" and "ball" may be concatenated to give "snowball". In many programming languages, string concatenation is a binary infix operator.

For example, the following expression uses the "+" symbol as the concatenation operator to join 2 strings:

print "Hello, " + "World"; produces the concatenated string "Hello, World" by joining those 2 strings.

Yes JT, clear as bl00dy mud! :{

I'll see you over in the Mod House and for that high falutin' technical talk in this Forum, its your shout! :}

propblast
3rd Sep 2010, 09:37
Maybe we should just sticky a thread "Stop, use search function, this is how!!". Similar to the image posting thread.

I say sticky, simply as it will keep it at the top of the list and the first thing that people see before they start a "Which Flying school thead?? for example.