Limiting Searches for larger databases
If you find that some searches in Calm take a considerable length of time you may wish to prevent certain types of searches.
Carrying out wildcard searches on a large data set can take a long time if the search facility is not used appropriately. For example if you enter '*' in the AnyText field of a search dialogue box you are asking Calm to find every record in the database, and to search every text-type field on each of these records to see if it contains at least one word. This may be a time-consuming search for larger databases, and is not the most efficient means of achieving the desired search result.
You can prevent various types of wildcard searching based on the size of the database being searched. This is done by adding values to the database registry key. If a searcher tries to carry out the prohibited wildcard search, instead of a search being performed, a dialogue box containing 'The search produced no hits' will be displayed.
Please contact the Calm Helpdesk if you want to use any of the wildcard string values to stop wildcard searching in a particular database.
The following types of wildcard searching can be limited:
- all wildcard searching, that is, '*'
- all left-hand wildcard searching, for example, '*man'
- single character right-hand wildcard searching, for example, 'w*'
- two character right-hand wildcard searching, for example, 'wo*'
Please note: Searchers often enter '*' in the AnyText field of a search dialogue box in the expectation of getting a hit list of every record in the database as a result of the search, however this is not necessarily the result as there may be records in the database with no data in Text-type fields.
- If you need a hit list of every record in a database, with the search dialogue box on screen, hold down the Shift key and press Enter.