On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 08:27 -0400, Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress
wrote:
>  >If "exact" is deprecated, what is the preferred way to do string
>  >searches?
> Anchor.  [snip]

That won't work and even if it did is awful enough to warrant a new
relation.

It won't work because there would be no way to distinguish word 
searches from string searches.

For example:
	dc.identifier adj "^gb 141 ms 123 - a^"
is not the same as
	dc.identifier eq "gb 141 ms 123 - a"

as the first search treats each space separated chunk as a word.
Making it impossible to distinguish between:
	"^start     end^"
and:
	"^start end^"

Hence, the need for an equality relation that works for data types other
than words.

Rob

-- 
Dr Robert Sanderson
Dept of Computer Science, University of Liverpool
Home:     http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~azaroth/
Cheshire: http://www.cheshire3.org/