Boolean

As mentioned above a user can use Boolean searches to help locate more exact matches in Internet searches. For example, a user could search for "computers help and DOS", which would search for any document containing computer help that also contain the word "DOS". Performing Boolean searches often help users find results relating more to what the user may need to find. In addition to using a Boolean operator many search engines also substitute "AND" with "+" and "NOT" with "-", so using our same above example a user could type "computer help +dos" to achieve the same results.

Below is an example chart that help explains the Boolean operations even more by giving examples and explanations of each of the different Boolean situations.

Example data = "Computer Hope is a location where users can find free computer help and information"

Boolean	Value_1	Value_2	Explanation	Results
AND	Free	Help	Because the above example data contains both "free" and "help" the results would be TRUE.	TRUE
AND	Expensive	Help	Although the above example does have "help", it does not contain "expensive" therefore the result would be FALSE.	FALSE
OR	Free	Help	The above example data has both "free" and "help" but the OR Boolean only requires one or the other therefore this would be TRUE.	TRUE
OR	Expensive	Help	Although "expensive" is not in the example data, it still does contain "help" therefore this would still remain TRUE.	TRUE
NOT	Free		The above example does contain "free", therefore the result would be FALSE.	FALSE
NOT	Expensive		The above example does not contain "expensive", therefore this result would be TRUE.	TRUE
XOR	Free	Help	The above example contains both "free" and "help", the XOR Boolean only requires one or the other but not both, therefore this is FALSE.	FALSE
XOR	Expensive	Help	The above example does not contain "expensive" but does contain "help", therefore this would be TRUE.	TRUE