Question: Using WITHIN and OR in a search

I'm trying to do a Bible search - the following phrase in Ephesians in the LEB:

in WITHIN 1 WORDS (him OR whom)

It yields 0 results. If I do either "in WITHIN 1 WORDS him" or "in WITHIN 1 WORDS whom", I get the results I'd expect. But I'd like all the results for both searches combined, and the search phrase I'm using seems like it ought to work.

Is this type of phrase supported? Any recommended workarounds if not?

Thanks,

Donnie

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Rosie Perera

OR cannot be combined with the proximity operators (WITHIN, NEAR). You need to use the list operator (comma). This works:

in WITHIN 1 WORDS (him, whom)

Todd Phillips

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/193193#Comment_193193

in WITHIN 1 WORDS (him, whom)

Yes that. Also you'd probably really want to use "BEFORE" instead of "WITHIN":

in BEFORE 1 WORDS (him, whom)

Donnie Hale

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/193195#Comment_193195

Rosie / Todd:

Thanks for the prompt replies. Gets me just the result set I'm looking for.

A follow-up question. If I look at the results as "Verses", I see a single verse for each unique "in Him" / "in whom" found, with the search words highlighted. However, if I look at the results as "Aligned" (my favorite view - it's really unbelievable), each verse is shown twice, once for each word. Is there a way to get "Aligned" to only show each verse once?

(Pre-post edit: I think I found at least one answer. The search phrase ["in Him" OR "in whom"] (without brackets) gets me the correct results and a single verse in the Aligned view.

Thanks again,

Donnie

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/193205#Comment_193205

If you want to understand why OR doesn't work in this context, this may help: http://wiki.logos.com/Detailed_Search_Help#Using_lists

Although it doesn't say so, lists will also result in the duplication in aligned view, due to the iteration described in the wiki.

Steve M.

Donnie, I was doing exactly the same kind of search recently and had the same confusion. Thanks, everyone, for clearing up the non-intuitive way Logos handles this search. And thanks, Mark, for the link to the wiki page and for all the work you've put into it. It's extremely helpful!

Donnie Hale

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/193265#Comment_193265

Although it doesn't say so, lists will also result in the duplication in aligned view, due to the iteration described in the wiki.

That may well be the case. But I'd argue there should at least be an option for displaying a single verse per matched result (assuming there aren't truly multiple matches in a single verse). That can be achieved by post-processing the search results (analogous to the "DISTINCT" keyword in SQL).

In any case, I appreciate the responses here. I love Logos, and this community really helps with the learning curve.

Donnie

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/193273#Comment_193273

That may well be the case. But I'd argue there should at least be an option for displaying a single verse per matched result (assuming there aren't truly multiple matches in a single verse). That can be achieved by post-processing the search results (analogous to the "DISTINCT" keyword in SQL).

Agreed. It seems unhelpful to leave the duplicate verses in there.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/193375#Comment_193375

I don't agree (at least in aligned view). The whole point of aligned is that the search term is central. If two terms match in one verse, then there needs to be two entries, so that both can be central. And what if the verse is a long one, and one match would not be visible if the second was central?

Donnie Hale

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/193418#Comment_193418

I don't agree (at least in aligned view). The whole point of aligned is that the search term is central. If two terms match in one verse, then there needs to be two entries, so that both can be central. And what if the verse is a long one, and one match would not be visible if the second was central?

That's why I said "optional". For all the searches I've done so far (admittedly very few), I'd use the option.

Donnie