Search options
Wildchar:
The use of wildchar '*' (asterisk) is fully supported, and very important when doing a search on this database. During a search an asterisk replaces one or several characters. The asterisk may be placed anywhere in a search string, and the string may include several asterisks.
If you want to search for an author, it is important that you include an asterisk at the end of the author name (e.g., Fabricius* instead of Fabricius). If you just search for Fabricius, and forget to include the asterisk at the end of the author name, you may end up with 0 records. This is due to the way the database is structured at present. Author name and year is combined in one field (AUTHOR). Thus, "Fabricius" is listed as "Fabricius, J.C. 1793". If you add an '*' (asterisk) to the author name, you will get all records where Fabricius is included in the field AUTHOR. We constantly try to improve the database and will change this inconvenient behavior in a future update.
I you leave a field empty, this is equivalent to typing an asterisk in the field. We recommend cautious use of the wildchar (e.g., do not try to perform a search with only one field filled in with asteriskes. This would potentially return the entire contents of the type database, and place a significant load on the server. For the same reason, we have implemented a maximum number of records returned during a search. At present the limit is 200 records.