How to Search for an Event
The search bar looks for your keywords in every event’s details (its title, location, contact, category, description, the calendar it belongs to, etc.) and returns the relevant events.
By default the search is for events from today forward.
Use of Symbols / Operators
Symbol |
Example |
Description |
OR |
keyword1 OR keyword2 |
Entering this in the search bar will return events that contain one or both of the keywords. NOTE: When nothing is entered between keywords, the search bar will perform the OR search by default. |
|| |
keyword1 || keyword2 | (same as above) |
AND |
keyword1 AND keyword2 |
Entering this in the search bar will return events that contain both keywords. |
&& |
keyword1 && keyword2 | (same as above) |
+ |
+keyword1 keyword2 |
Entering this in the search bar will return events that contain keyword1 FOR SURE and MAY contain keyword2. |
NOT |
keyword1 NOT keyword2 |
Entering this in the search bar will return events that contain keyword1 but not keyword2. |
! |
keyword1 !keyword2 | (same as above) |
– |
keyword1 -keyword2 | (same as above) |
? |
m?de |
Entering this in the search bar will return events that contain terms matching m?de where ? can be any character. That is, events containing “made,” “mode,” etc. will be returned. NOTE: ? cannot be the first character of your search keyword. |
* |
m*de |
Entering this in the search bar will return events that contain terms matching m*de where * can be any string of characters. That is, events containing “made,” “mode,” “marmalade,” etc. will be returned. NOTE: * cannot be the first character of your search keyword. |
~ |
made~ |
Entering this in the search bar will return events that contain terms that are similar with “made” (such as “mode,” “make,” “jade,” etc.). This is known as a fuzzy search. |
( , ) |
(career OR volunteer) AND workshop |
The brackets allow you to control the logic when multiple operators are used. This example will return events containing the terms “career workshop” or “volunteer workshop.” |
“ |
“keyword1 keyword2 keyword3” |
When keywords are quoted, the search bar will return events that contain an exact match of that phrase. In this example, only events that contain ALL of keyword1, keyword2, and keyword3 in the INDICATED ORDER will be returned by the search bar. |
Note:
1. |
If your search keywords contain any of these characters but you do NOT want them to be associated with special functions, you can add a \ in front of the special character. For instance, there is an event called “UBC SustainAB!LITY Festival.” To make the search engine look for a special character like ! without interpreting it as a special NOT function, enter a backslash in front of the character. That is, you would enter UBC SustainAB\!LITY Festival in the search bar. |
2. |
When these characters are used without the proper syntax, an error message will be produced. Therefore, please refer to the Example column of the above table for proper locations of these characters relative to the search keywords. |
3. |
In addition to the symbols/operators listed above, the following are also considered special characters: { } [ ] ^ ” : \ Therefore, to search for these characters, please enter a backslash in front of each special character – e.g. To search for the phrase [book], enter in the search bar \[book\] |
4. |
The search is case-insensitive. That is, the keywords “UBCevents” and “ubcevents” should yield the same results. |
5. |
When the Limit is set to “today forward,” you will not be able to find a recurring event whose first instance has already passed; even if the event will recur in a future date, it will not be included in the search results. Therefore, when nothing is returned for your keywords, please try to change the Limit to “all dates” and search again. |