> Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 21:12:18 -0500 > From: "LeVan,Ralph" <[log in to unmask]> > > > So I don't like this hijacking of the meaning of "*" > > How the heck is this hijacking? When I say "rm *", I expect > everything to be deleted. When I say "find *", I expect everything > to be retrieved. When I say "find title=*", I expect every title to > be retrieved. > > What semantics am I hijacking? I am surprised you're still asking this after Adam and Seb have both provided good counter-examples. The proposal is to use "*" to mean "everything" for both apples and oranges (and grapefruit, and weasels). You have provided a nice set of examples of how it is applicable for a selection of apple varieties, but no-one's disputed that. When you type "find date=*" to your _existing implementation_, what happens? When you are searching a "more like this document" index, where the search term is a 10,000-word document, would you expect _that_ to work with "find moreLikeThis=*"? When you are searching a set of points in (x,y) space, using a structure attribute (expressed in CQL as a relation modifier) that says query terms are of the form "465,1023", do you expect to find all terms using "find positionInSpace =/commaPair *"? Or perhaps using "find positionInSpace =/commaPair *.*"? It just doesn't fit in the general case. That fact it it does happen to fit in a lot of the common cases is merely misleading. _/|_ _______________________________________________________________ /o ) \/ Mike Taylor <[log in to unmask]> http://www.miketaylor.org.uk )_v__/\ "In a phone booth in some local bar and grill; rehearsing what to say, my coin returns" -- Paul Simon, "How the Heart Approaches What it Yearns" -- Listen to free demos of soundtrack music for film, TV and radio http://www.pipedreaming.org.uk/soundtrack/