HotBot and Boolean Operators

[Martin Courtois]

I noticed recently that it was necessary to capitalize boolean operators
when doing a nested boolean search in HotBot.  Here's the response I
received (the same day) from the HotBot help desk:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 16:37:18 -0800
From: Hotbot Support Services <support at wired.com>
To: courtois at gwu.edu
Cc: support at wired.com
Subject: Re: Search problems  [HotBot #45710]

Hi there,

Thanks for the note. This is a bug due to the recent HotBot 5.0 update.
Currently, the Boolean operators that are working properly are AND, NOT and
OR in uppercase only. Lowercase does not work at the moment and neither
does '&', '|', or '!'.

We're working to fix this as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Kristen

>
>I've noticed that I need to capitalize boolean operators any time I do a
>search that involves nesting.  For example, if I search
>
>frisbee and (dog or dogs)
>
>I get this response:
>
>"Sorry, your search yielded no results.
>Please revise your search query and try again."
>
>But if I enter
>
>frisbee AND (dog or dogs)
>
>I get a response with many hits.
>
>Your search help and FAQ don't indicate that certain operators need to be
>capitalized in statements using nesting.
>
>Thanks for your help,
>

***********************************************************
Martin Courtois
Electrical Engineering/Computer Science Reference Librarian
Gelman Library
George Washington University
2130 H St., N.W.
Washington DC 20052
Phone: (202) 994-0684
FAX: (202) 994-1340
E-mail: courtois at gwu.edu