WWW.AU
The second search method provided is free text searching. This enables a user to enter any string and ask for those entries which match. This is very handy when the user knows a phrase, word, or part of a word which is likely to be contained in the descriptions or key fields of any relevant entries. In contrast, the first search method is useful for browsing through entries on related subjects.
At present, the database has three key fields which are the category, the network and the node in that order. Consider the first example mentioned above. The search request search.cgi?WWW.AUDB/URL.db does not include a category and therefore the whole database is selected. If there were fewer than 20 records, they would all be listed. Since there are more than 20 records, they are classified by the first key field, namely by category. This returns an index of categories, each entry looking somewhat like the second example.
The second example search.cgi?WWW.AUDB/URL.db+Media restricts the database to the "Media" category. If there are not too many entries in that category, they will all be listed. Otherwise, they will be further indexed according to the next key field, in this case the network. This would yield an index of entries similar to the third example.
Thus for browsing the WWW.AU index, users do not need to perform any typing. They can simply click their way through a hierarchy of progressively narrower indexes, until a short list of entries is finally produced.
The example above will yield a list of all sites concerned with tennis. The search is carried out on key fields and on descriptive fields. All searches are case independent.
