This section describes how to use CentraSite's Search feature to locate assets and stored documents using keyword searches, advanced searches and XQuery searches.
The keyword search is an easy to use search facility in which you can specify arbitrary search patterns.
You can search for all assets that contain one or more specified keywords (i.e., text strings) in the asset's string attributes (asset name, description, etc.). The contents of the supporting documents are not searched. It is not possible to restrict the types on which the search is conducted.
The number of search results is displayed in brackets in the title line of the results area, for example "Assets (43)". If no results are found, this is displayed as (0).
Upon switching from keyword search to XQuery search, a default XQuery statement is displayed (i.e., the displayed XQuery does not correspond to the keyword search.)
Certain characters have a special function when used in the keyword search:
Wildcard characters allow you to search for keywords that match a string pattern. See Using Wildcards.
The quote character (") is used to group keywords into phrases, as described in Using Keywords.
To force the keyword search to treat these metacharacters as normal characters, precede the character with a backslash (\). If you want to include the backslash character itself in the search, type two backslashes.
You can define the input for the keyword search in the following ways:
A keyword search consists of 1-n search keywords. Multiple keywords are space separated. If multiple keywords are given, a logical disjunction (OR) is implied.
A keyword is treated as partial text which can occur at the beginning of the searched strings. The "starts with" semantics are implied.
Example: If the keyword is "customer", then the following matches are returned: "A sample svc for customers" as well as "customerservice".
As multiple keywords are OR combined, the keywords can match a single phrase (e.g. in the description) or individual keywords can occur in different attributes. Example: If a search is conducted for "customer service", then "customer" could be matched in the description and "service" in an object specific attribute.
If quotes (" ") exist around a phrase, then a search is performed on the exact phrase within the quotes. A space within a quoted phrase is considered as a space character and not as a logical operation.
You can mix and match any number of words and quoted phrases within the keyword field.
The search is neither case nor accent sensitive, even within a quoted phrase. Example: A search for "abc" will return the same results as a search for "ABC" or "Abc".
If you enter a string that contains an odd number of double-quote characters, then the last double-quote character is ignored when the search is performed.
If the keyword search input field is empty when the search is executed, the search returns all available assets.
The keyword search can include wildcard characters. See Using Wildcards for details.
The available wildcard characters are as follows:
| Character | Usage |
|---|---|
| * or % |
If you use the percent symbol ("%") or the asterisk ("*"), CentraSite replaces the wildcard symbol with as many characters as necessary to find a match. For example, an entry of "A%n" returns both "Amazon" and "American". If you enter "*al", then "CalcService", "Calendar" and "AustralianPostCode" all fit the search criteria. |
| ? or _ |
If you use the question mark ("?") or the underscore ("_"), CentraSite replaces the wildcard symbol with a single character in order to find a match. Example: "CustomerSVC?Request" matches any character for "?". |
You can use a wildcard character at any point in the keyword text, and multiple times throughout the keyword text. If you enter a wildcard character in the middle of a string, for example "cat*dog", then at least one of the searched attributes must contain the string in order for the asset or supporting document to be included in the result set.
If a wildcard character between two words is surrounded by spaces, such as "word1 * word2", the wildcard will match one word.
Notes:
To search by keyword
In CentraSite Control, go to .
On the Search page, open the Keyword profile.
In the text box, type the keyword(s) to search for. You can use one or more wildcards to specify the keywords.
If you leave the text box blank, or enter just a wildcard, the entire set of stored assets and supporting documents is returned.
Click .
CentraSite returns the assets that match the search criteria.
For assets, the search looks for the keyword(s) in the asset's name, type and description attributes.
By default the result set is ordered by relevance. Relevance is decided as follows:
If the search criteria contain more than one keyword, the assets that match the most keywords are ranked higher.
Assets where one or more search criteria match the Name or Description are rated higher than those where other attributes match.
CentraSite's advanced search capabilities allow you to build sophisticated search clauses to search for assets on the basis of asset types and attribute values. The search criteria can be combined by a logical conjunction (AND) or disjunction (OR) operation.
The number of search results is displayed in brackets in the title line of the results area, for example "Assets (43)". If no results are found, this is displayed as (0).
On switching from advanced search to XQuery search the XQuery statement represented by the advanced search is displayed.
To search for an asset using the asset type
In CentraSite Control, go to .
On the Search page, select the Advanced tab.
In the section Types, select an asset type from the drop-down box.
If you want to include an additional asset type in the search, use the plus button beside the asset type that you have already chosen. This opens a new drop-down box, in which you can specify the additional asset type. When you specify several asset types in this way, the search result will include asset types from all of the chosen asset types.
If you want to search across all asset types, select from the list.
If you want to remove an asset type from the search, use the minus button beside the asset type.
Click .
Now, CentraSite Control lists the assets that match the search criteria. By default the result set is ordered by relevance.
You can refine your search by specifying asset attributes to search for.
If you specify a single asset type for the search, the set of attributes that you can use for the search is the set of attributes for that asset type. If you have specified several asset types for the search, the set of attributes available for the search is restricted to the general, non-type-specific attributes.
To search for an asset by attribute values
In CentraSite Control, go to .
On the Search page, select the Advanced tab.
In the Types section, select the asset type or types to be searched for, as described above.
In the Criteria section, there is a drop-down list that allows you to specify the asset attribute to search for.
Select the required asset attribute from the list.
Depending on the asset type you select, new drop-down lists or text fields appear that allow you to refine the search.
Some criteria such as Organization
and Classification offer a
button, which you can select to see a list of the
known objects of this type.
Other asset types allow you to use search predicates such as "equals" and "not equals" to find assets. If your chosen asset type allows the use of search predicates, specify the required search string in the text box beside the search predicate. Any text you type in is case insensitive
Use the plus button to add an entry to the list. Use the minus button beside an entry to remove it from the list.
Click .
Now, CentraSite Control lists the assets that match the search criteria. By default the result set is ordered by relevance.
You can specify generic attributes (i.e. attributes common to all asset types) and type-specific attributes as search criteria.
The generic attributes that can be used as search criteria are described in the following table:
| Search Attribute | Usage |
|---|---|
| Name |
Use this attribute to search for assets whose name matches a specified text string. You can specify a substring or expression that can be combined with a "contains word" (default option), "starts with", "equals" or "not equals" expression. The search is neither case nor accent sensitive. If "starts with" is used, no wildcard is necessary as a postfix. If "contains word" is used, the word given is treated as a partial string with implicit wildcards. If "equals" or "not equals" is used, no wildcards are supported. If multiple substrings have been given the parameters are implicitly quoted. Explicit quotations and wildcards can be used, and behave in the same way as for keyword searches. |
| Description |
Use this attribute to search for assets whose description matches a specified text string. Usage is the same as for the |
| Internal Classification |
Use this attribute to search for assets that are classified with the selected classification and the optional category or subtree. The selection of a category is optional to allow searching for all assets where a taxonomy was applied irrespective of the category. If a subtree was selected, then all categories contained in the subtree are considered for search. |
| External Classification |
Use this attribute to search for assets that are classified with the selected classification and the optional category or subtree. Searches for all objects that are classified with the selected taxonomy and the optional value. The input of a value is optional, and allows you to search for all assets where a taxonomy was applied irrespective of the category. For the value, wildcards are also allowed and the behavior is the same as for name searches. |
| LifeCycle State |
Use this attribute to search for assets that are in a specified lifecycle state. |
| Created |
Use this attribute to search for assets with a specified creation date. You can select a date and apply a before/after/on/between criterion. If "between" is used, a second input field allows you to specify the end date. The date input parameters allow year, month and day input as well as hour and minute. Hour and minute default to 0. The data format is used as specified in the account preferences of a user (defaults to "yyyy-mm-dd"). No wildcards are supported. |
| Modified |
Use this attribute to search for assets with a specified modification date. Usage is the same as for the |
| Owner |
Use this attribute to search for assets belonging to a specified user. Choose the user via a Browse selection list. |
| Organization |
Use this attribute to search for assets provided by a specified organization. Choose the organization via a Browse selection list. |
| UDDI Key |
Use this attribute to search for an asset that exactly matches the given UDDI V3 key. If no prefix "uddi:" is given, this is implied automatically. No wildcards are supported. |
| Object-specific property |
Use this attribute to search for assets that match the specified object-specific property. You can specify one or more of the local name, namespace and value of the attribute. You can for example search just by local name (without value or namespace) to retrieve assets that use the same object specific attribute name. Wildcards are allowed for name and value, and they can be used in the same way as for keyword searches. |
| Type-specific property |
Use this to search for assets, based on the values of type-specific attributes. When you select this criterion, the dialog presents two related fields: one for specifying the name of the type-specific attribute and one for specifying the value to be searched for. For more information, see Type-Specific Attributes. |
| Association |
Use this attribute to search for assets that match the specified association. This allows you to retrieve all assets that participate in an association or as a relationship attribute. You can select an association type and choose if the assets to be found are: target, source or either case. In addition you can optionally specify the asset types that are the source/target of the association. (Example: find all services that have an outgoing <uses> association to an XML Schema). |
| Custom Condition |
Use this attribute to enter a custom XQuery condition to be combined with other given criteria. |
| Version |
Use this attribute to select required versions of assets. If you choose "show all", the result list contains all versions of an object in which other criteria matched. If you choose "newest only", only the latest version of an asset is displayed. If you choose "exact match", you need to enter an additional parameter which is treated as version information. The search is conducted across system and user versions. |
| Revision |
Use this attribute to search by checkpoint label or checkpoint range (time interval). Use this attribute to search by revision label (user version) and/or revision range (time interval). You can enter a string value as the revision label. For the label "startsWith", "equals", "notEquals" and "containsWord", operators are available as in search by name, with the same handling of wildcards. In addition a user can select date range to retrieve all revision created in the given data interval. A date based search does not require that a label is given. As search results the revision instances are retrieved (not the objects having that revision in history). |
| Extension Point Search |
Use this attribute to specify a search criterion via a user-defined pluggable UI extension. When you select this criterion, a field appears with a drop-down menu that shows all of the available extension points for a search. Select the required extension point. Then click the button. This invokes the user-defined Adapter (layout) screen for entering custom search-related settings. For information on defining an extension point for a search, see the section Customizing Content Pages in the document CentraSite Control Pluggable Architecture. |
In addition to the generic attributes listed in the table above, each asset type can have its own type-specific search criteria, based on the type-specific attributes of the asset type. See the section What an Asset Type Contains > Attributes in the Object Type Management document for general information about type-specific attributes and their data types.
The type-specific attributes can be selected in two ways in the dialog. The first way is to select the entry Type-specific property in the drop-down list of generic search criteria, as described in the table above. The second way is to select one of the additional entries in the drop-down list as follows:
The type-specific search criteria are shown in the Criteria drop-down list in the form <AttributeName> (<DataType>), where <AttributeName> is the name of the type-specific attribute and <DataType> is the data type of the attribute.
For example, if you select the asset type Service
in the Types field, the Criteria
drop-down list contains search criteria like "SOAP-Version
(String)", which refers to the service's type-specific attribute
SOAP-Version which has the data type
String.
Depending on the data type of the type-specific attribute you choose, the Criteria section of the dialog changes to reflect the search possibilities for that data type.
You can specify in which way the search criteria should be combined:
To specify how the search criteria should be combined
From the Search Uses box, select one of the following:
To specify that an asset must meet all criteria to be considered a match, select .
To specify that an asset must meet at least one of the criteria to be considered a match, select .
You can search for assets and supporting documents using an XQuery search. There are two general approaches you can use to specify an XQuery search:
Write the query from scratch. This requires a good knowledge of the XQuery language.
Use first an advanced search, then switch to the XQuery tab. In this case, the equivalent XQuery code is displayed, and you can adapt it to your requirements.
Note:
The results are displayed in XML format, rather than as a list of
matching assets and supporting documents.
To perform an XQuery search
In CentraSite Control, go to .
To base your XQuery search on an advanced search, perform the advanced search as described above.
Open the XQuery profile.
Edit the displayed XQuery code, or enter your new XQuery code.
Click .
The results of the search are displayed below the XQuery code. The results are shown as a single XML document that contains the definitions of the assets that met the search criteria.
The Keyword and Advanced searches return a list of assets that match the search criteria.
You can perform various actions on the displayed list of assets. If you want to perform an action on just one of the displayed assets, you can open the context menu of the asset (for example, by right-clicking on the asset's name) and select an action. If you want to perform an action on several of the displayed assets, you can mark the checkboxes of all of the required assets, then select an action from the menu.
Here is a sample of the available actions:
View details for one or more of the displayed assets.
Register as a consumer of one or more of the displayed assets.
Delete one or more of the displayed assets.
Note:
If you have selected multiple assets where one or more of them are
predefined assets (such as UDDI ... Services, for
example), you can use the
button to delete the
assets. However, as you are not allowed to delete predefined assets, only
assets you have permission for will be deleted. The same applies to any other
assets for which you do not have the required permission.
Change the lifecycle state of one or more of the displayed assets.
Add one or more of the displayed assets to the Favorites list.
When you define a keyword search, an advanced search or an XQuery search, you might want to save the search definition, so that you can execute the same search again at a later stage.
Note:
Saved search can only be executed by the user who created the saved
search.
To save a search definition
Define a keyword search, an advanced search or an XQuery search, as described above.
Click the button.
Specify a name for the saved search, then click .
The search is stored under this name in your My Favorites list.
To re-execute a saved search
Open your My Favorites list under .
Choose the entry for the search in your My Favorites list. This starts the search directly.
CentraSite runs the search and displays the results.
If you want to create a new search based on an existing saved search, proceed as follows:
To create a new search based on an existing saved search
Create the saved search as described above.
Run the saved search from the My Favorites list, then click the button that is displayed at the top of the result list.
This opens the appropriate search definition page that was used to create the saved search. The page shows all of the search parameters of the saved search.
Adapt the search definition as required.
If you want to save the modified search also as a saved search, click and specify a name for the new saved search. Note that you cannot overwrite an existing saved search with a modified saved search.
