In general database searching, NEAR is usually defined as
operating within a 'sentence'.  A 'sentence' usually ends with a
period, but in some databases, other characters can end a logical
sentence. For example in one system, words within parentheses
are searched as an independent 'sentence'. Does L-Soft have
symbols other than a period that end a logical sentence?

Dan Robinson
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On 26 Oct 00, at 3:37, Winship wrote:

> Since no one at L-SOFT has ventured to define NEAR for me, will this do?
> Unless I get something truly authoratative I'm going to go with it.
>.......... And I still don't like it that the implicit was changed
> from AND to NEAR.  So I am writing my own comprehensive, list centric,
> item and is this an accurate description of the NEAR operand?
>
>  ----
> For LISTSERV to consider two "words" to be NEAR they must be within a
> line of each other, with no more than five intervening "words."
> "Word" and "line" order are immaterial, but note that "line" is as
> defined by LISTSERV and may not match what you mean by "line" and
> "word" is as defined elsewhere in this document.
>  (definition of "word" not included here)
>   ----
>
> I would totally leave out mention of the NEAR comparative had it not been
> made the implicit over the AND operand.
>
>
> Douglas