Logical or Boolean operators

Boolean operators enable you to refine your searches to achieve specific results. Nuix supports the following Boolean operators: AND, OR, and NOT.

While you can chain together any number of logical ANDs or ORs, combining the various operators together can lead to ambiguity in search syntax. In such cases, it is recommended you use parentheses to clarify the order of operations with the innermost pair of parentheses being performed first, followed by the next most inner pair working outwards until all operations in parentheses are complete. Any remaining operations outside the parentheses are then performed last.

AND operator

Use the AND operator to combine two or more search terms to match only those items that include all of the individual terms.

This operator is not case sensitive, so a lowercase "and" in queries is also recognized. You can combine the AND operator with other types of search syntax. For example, you can use AND in between terms that use a wildcard or a fuzzy search.

If you use two single terms in a query without an operator in between and not enclosed by quote marks, by default Nuix searches for the terms using the AND operator between them.

You can also substitute the plus (+) symbol for AND; for example, insider AND trading AND options is the same as insider +trading +options. Examples:

Query string

Results

Joe AND Bloggs

Matches items that contain both "Joe" and "Bloggs".

Joe Bloggs

Matches the same items as the previous query, because AND is the default operator.

Joe +Bloggs

Matches the same items as the previous two queries (alternative syntax).

J* AND Bloggs

Matches items containing text starting with "J" and the full word "Bloggs".

Joe~ AND Bloggs

Matches items of fuzzy search results for "Joe" and the full word "Bloggs".

OR operator

Use the OR operator to combine two or more search terms to match items that include either of the individual terms. This operator behaves much like the AND operator with respect to combining other queries. Examples:

Query string

Results

Joe OR Bloggs

Matches items containing either "Joe" or "Bloggs", or both.

NOT operator

Use the NOT operator to combine two or more search terms to match items that include only the first term, but do not include the second term. This operator behaves like the AND operator with respect to mixing other queries.

You can also substitute the minus (-) symbol for NOT to terms you want to exclude from a search. Examples:

Query string

Results

Joe NOT Bloggs

Matches items containing "Joe", but not "Bloggs".

Joe -Bloggs

Matches the same items as the previous query (alternative syntax).

XOR (Exclusive OR) operator

Nuix does not support an explicit XOR operand. However, because it does support the use of parentheses, you can construct equivalent queries by using NOT and OR in the same query. Examples: 

Query string

Results

(Joe NOT Bloggs) OR (Bloggs NOT Joe)

Matches items containing either "Joe" or "Bloggs", but not both. That is, it could return matches containing Joe Smith or Karen Bloggs.