>>>>> Overview: Searching the Qstudy-l Archive



The Qstudy-l list is archived.  At present, it is possible to

retrieve any post made to the list, as long as you can remember enough

about it to identify it to the Listserv search program.  





Disclaimer:  I'm not that good at this business so the stuff below may

contain errors, OK?  Mea culpa. 





Communicate with the Listserv database by sending e-mail to:



                    Listserv@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu     



with no subject line, no signature block, and patterned on the following 

control job examples.



           DO NOT SEND SEARCH JOBS TO Qstudy-L@listserv... 



             -------------------------------------------







>>>>> Basic search jobs:



Construct your e-mail to Listserv@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu as follows:



------------------------Sample Search Job-------------------------------

//JOB 

Database Search DD=Rules

//Rules DD   *

search sedgwick and cats and wine in Qstudy-l

index

/*

------------------------------------------------------------------------



In place of "sedgwick and cats and wine" in the above job, insert words 

you're looking for.  You can string along as many or as few  __ and

__ and __ and __ items as you want.  You can also use OR in search

strings, but usually that widens the search.  The "index" command in the job

above simply tells listserv to send you a list of files hit by the search

string.



Try the search job above; it should produce two hits:  the original post by 

Eve Sedgwick, and this post.  You should get a message detailing CPU usage, 

and (eventually) a message with the results of the search.



REMEMBER YOU MUST SPECIFY THE LIST YOU WANT TO SEARCH (i.e. "in Qstudy-l").





>>>>> Using dates in search strings:



You can limit a search with dates. It is a good idea to do so if possible, as

it cuts down on CPU overhead a lot; this is important because Listserv does NOT

multi-task.  (That from the manual.)  If you remember that a post was from a

general time you can specify that as a search parameter.  Notice that the date

format is yy-mm-dd. For instance, 



search oklahoma and bomb from 1995-02-01 to 1995-04-30 in Qstudy-l



(Search string keywords like "and" and "from" and "to" and "in" are not

searchable without being in quote marks.  But how productive is it to search

for "and" anyway?)



See the end of this message for examples of other search strings.





>>>>> Search output



Listserv will execute the search and then e-mail an index of the results.

This may take a good while.



The file will contain Item numbers, the date and time of the post, how many

lines it has, and the subject header.  You then send another job to Listserv

to ask for the Item numbers you want (if any).  



Here is a sample of the index that Listserv sent for a search I did:



Item #   Date   Time  Recs   Subject

------   ----   ----  ----   -------

003431 95/04/26 11:10   36   Re: Oklahoma/Rhetoric

003444 95/04/27 01:04   27   Re: Oklahoma/Rhetoric

003476 95/04/29 16:34  297   Who is Floyd Cochran?

004264 95/08/11 19:38   94   Re: Mumia

004750 95/09/15 05:59   47   child porn

004758 95/09/15 12:48   58   Damion's comment on child porn

. . .

[other entries deleted for bandwidth]





>>>>> Retrieval of specific posts:



To get specific items, you send a job to replicate the search followed by

the command to send the correct item number(s) rather than the "index" 

command.  For example (with numbers from the above output): 



-----------------Sample job to request specific items--------------------

//   JOB

Database Search DD=Rules

//Rules DD   *

search aol and fbi from 1995-04-01 to 1995-11-01 in Qstudy-l

print 004750 004758

/*

-------------------------------------------------------------------------



It may take several tries to hone in on a search string that gets you down

far enough to see what you're looking for.  (If you save your outgoing e-mail

all you have to do is edit it and resend.) Once you get the subject header 

for a thread, you can just search for that (but sometimes that doesn't work

well, as you know if you follow some of our subject threads). Just keep trying

until you get something that gets you close to what you want, and then start

sending data back and reading it.  If you want ALL of a search's output, simply

make the command "print all" in the sample job above. (Limit 2000 

lines of output, I think.)





>>>>> Other Search Strings:



You can build complex searches by combining elements from the following

samples.  Remember to specify "in qstudy-l" at the end!



Also, keep in mind that searching for cia will snag occurrences of CIA,

special, specialize, etc.  You can use single quote marks to include

spaces with a search term or to specify exact phrases.





search 'religious right' and perversion in Qstudy-l

search ' cia' and investigation in Qstudy-l

search greenblatt and forwarding in Qstudy-l

search mcintire or speirs or edgerton since 1995-01-01 in Qstudy-l

search gerble and religion until 1995-01-01 in Qstudy-l

search donahue and 'drag queen' from 1994-09-01 to 1994-10-31 in Qstudy-l



Double quotes are like single quotes, but make the search case sensitive:

search " FBI" from 1995-04-01 to 1995-07-15 in Qstudy-l



The * symbol means "everything" so you can get all posts for a given

period with this string:

search * from 1995-09-01 to 1995-09-10 in Qstudy-l





            * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *



Hope this helps.  There's lots more features (like phonetic searches), as

well as many abbreviations and shortcuts, but I don't know how to do them. 

This pretty much exhausts my knowledge of the database. 



                                       Peace,  --AAM



Anthony A. McIntire

University of Kentucky

AAMcIn0@ukcc.uky.edu