Do proximity searches use exact number of words

In Logos 3 proximity searches (BEFORE, WITHIN, etc.), "words" were estimated based on a number of character positions. The Logos 3 help says:

Terms in Libronix DLS resources are only indexed by character positions; actual word counts are not stored in the index. For this reason, word proximity is simulated at search time by using an average word length based on the language of the text being searched. For English, the average word length is assumed to be six characters plus an extra allowance for spaces, punctuation, and other potential intervening characters.

Does anyone know if this is still true in Logos 4 or do proximity searches in Logos 4 actually measure the proximity between words as actual words?

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Rosie Perera

I'm afraid I don't know. We'll probably need a Logos developer to answer this. But if I were implementing this I'd probably do it the same way it was done in L3. I would think that a "word" proximity search would be relatively infrequent and wouldn't warrant the excess data storage to be able to compute it exactly. You'd have to store not only the character offset but the word count for every single occurrence of every single word in every single resource. It would also slow down indexing.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/174746#Comment_174746

Given the fact that antidisestablishmentarianism WITHIN 3 WORDS nothing correctly returns "In fact, with the exception of “antidisestablishmentarianism,” which has nothing to do with theology, these are the longest and most confusing words I know…", I would say it does use the exact number of words.

Dave Hooton

do proximity searches in Logos 4 actually measure the proximity between words as actual words?

Yes. That was clarified here! To be clear, though:-

"the cat and the bag" ==> "bag" is 4 words from "the" .

So proximity is distance (4 words) rather than separation (3 words).

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/174748#Comment_174748

Given the fact that antidisestablishmentarianism WITHIN 3 WORDS nothing correctly returns "In fact, with the exception of “antidisestablishmentarianism,” which has nothing to do with theology, these are the longest and most confusing words I know…", I would say it does use the exact number of words.

I would have thought you'd need to test it where antidisestablishmentarianism is one of the words in between, not one of the endpoints. That occurrence of antidisestablishmentarianism you found is still within about 3 x 6 letters of the word nothing, so the example doesn't prove anything. However I think you are right, because "Church of England" WITHIN 4 WORDS adjective finds

But "Church of England" WITHIN 3 WORDS adjective doesn't find it, which answers another question I've had about what "WITHIN" means.

antidisestablishmentarianism /ˌantɪdɪsɪˌstablɪʃm(ə)nˈtɛːrɪənɪz(ə)m/

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/174770#Comment_174770

That occurrence of antidisestablishmentarianism you found is still within about 3 x 6 letters of the word nothing, so the example doesn't prove anything.

antidisestablishmentarianism WITHIN 3-3 WORDS nothing will establish that proximity is exactly 3 words.

"Church of England" WITHIN 4 WORDS adjective finds

But "Church of England" WITHIN 3 WORDS adjective doesn't find it,

"Church of England" WITHIN 4-4 WORDS adjective should establish that - and & are disregarded (not words).

Harry Hahne

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/174768#Comment_174768

Yes. That was clarified here!

Thanks for the information. It is so good to hear that they non longer use the character based approach. I wish this type of thing was clearly documented.

"the cat and the bag" ==> "bag" is 4 words from "the" .

So proximity is distance (4 words) rather than separation (3 words).

This is a very important distinction.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/174768#Comment_174768

"the cat and the bag" ==> "bag" is 4 words from "the"

Actually "bag" is only 1 word from "the" [:P]

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/174798#Comment_174798

Actually "bag" is only 1 word from "the"

Don't let the cat out of (the) bag[:(]

Jacob Hantla

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/174748#Comment_174748

Given the fact that antidisestablishmentarianism WITHIN 3 WORDS nothing correctly returns "In fact, with the exception of “antidisestablishmentarianism,” which has nothing to do with theology, these are the longest and most confusing words I know…", I would say it does use the exact number of words.

Yup because antidisestablishmentarianism WITHIN 2 WORDS nothing returns 0 results whereas antidisestablishmentarianism WITHIN 3 WORDS nothing returns 1