2009-02-19

Search: Now with UWPs

Has this ever happened to you?
Damn... where did I leave that world?!?! I know it's UWP is A7899B9-B but I can't for the life of me remember where I left it! Well, I'm not sure... maybe it was B7899B9-C or A7899B9-C... ugh...
If so, your days of trouble are over! You can now search for UWPs. Here's how it works:
  • By default, search still only looks for names (sectors, subsectors, and worlds), matching starts of words (so "sol" matches "Solomani Rim", "Sol", and "Nowa Sol")
  • If your search term has the pattern XXXXXXX-X (7-1) the search looks for exact matches of UWPs instead (not prefixes)
  • You can also make it explicit and use a uwp: prefix on the search to force UWP matching
And for added bonus:
  • Wildcard searches are supported, using either the % or * character. They mean the same - match zero or more characters. So you could search on R*g*a to find Regina. Note that searches have an implicit wildcard at the end, so that's the same as R*g*a*
You can combine wildcards with the uwp: prefix as well. The Search API documentation has been documented to reflect this.
A cookie to the first commenter that finds my missing world!
Ω

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very nice serch function. :-)

Now may it be possible to refine it further? When I searched for a nice pirate base (uwp:B****00-*) I get hits along the Zhodani core route and spin-rim of Aslan space. That was not what I was looking for.

It is also interesting to see that there are two TL-J (19) worlds. One in the Vargr Extents and one on the Zhodani core route. :-O

Joshua Bell said...

Yeah, I figured that'd be the next request. I should probably follow the Web search paradigms, meaning you can refine the search by listing multiple keywords and prefixes. So possibly things like:

allegiance:im vla

allegiance:im uwp:*-J

uwp:*-E spinward marches

Roger said...

Excellent :) Many thanks, Joshua :) Fits the bill exactly :)