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> 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
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