Flex and Word Searches with Hyphenated Words

[Carol Kankelborg]

I generally keep my search as Flex and expect it to accept as input the same words as Word mode. I also expect the behavior of each to be identical when there are no flex variations possible (such as place names).

 

I cannot do a Flex search for a hyphenated word (e.g. bond-servant in NASB, or Kadesh-barnea). I get an error message "Accordance 14.0.4 (14.0.4) MacOS 13.2.1 "Other" The “-” character can only be used in a “wild card” expression, or together with the “@” character." This makes searching for (bond-servant <or> bond-servants) more cumbersome than it ought to be. 

 

Word search does not seem to distinguish "bond-servant" from "bondservant." When I Word search ESV for "bond-servant" Accordance gives me all the verses using "bondservant." In NASB, when I search for "bondservant" (Word or Flex) Accordance replaces it with "'bond-servant"" (it adds the quotation marks).

 

A Word or Flex search in NASB for "bond*" gives me bond-servant(s), but also bond, bondage, etc.

However, a Word or Flex search for bond-servant* complains about the hyphen.

 

This also is a bug in iPadOS.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Thanks for this! I’ll look into this sometime this week and give you an update.

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

What results do you get with bond?servant*  I’m thinking that might solve your immediate problem

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

I’m seeing the same results on my end. I get an error when I perform @Lorinda H. M. Hoover's search in the NASB. Let me chat with support on this one.

[Lawrence]

@Carol Kankelborg

 

With flex search, put the search string in double-quotes. See the two screenshots below with and without the quote marks.

 

 

Note that quote marks are not compatible with wildcards - so you can't have use "bond-servant"* to find both "bond-servant" and "bond-servants".

 

@Nathan Parker It would be better for all search syntax to be consistent, both for Flex vs Words, and quotes + wildcards.

 

 

Edited April 5, 2023 by Lawrence

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

12 hours ago, Nathan Parker said:

I’m seeing the same results on my end. I get an error when I perform @Lorinda H. M. Hoover's search in the NASB. Let me chat with support on this one.

Sorry about that...My laptop battery was dead at the time, so I couldn't test it before suggesting it.  apparently ? won't cover characters like hypens. 

 

"bond-servant" (including the quotes) does work for me, though.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

I wonder how much of this is an actual bug or how much of this would be considered feedback for future improvement. If someone can separate the actual bugs from the feedback for improvements, that would help me to know where to direct them.