For example, in my test database, I have a label 20130803Test assigned to 4 image files out of 68.
Four searches, with the number of results:
1. AND(Test20130803) --> 4
2. OR(Test20130803) --> 4
3. AND(excluding (Test20130803*)) --> 64
4. OR(excluding (Test20130803*)) --> 0
Why do 3 and 4 produce different answers? I have spent some time thinking about this, and I haven't yet thought of a set of logic rules that would produce zero responses to #4. Because of this sort of thing I don't trust OR searches: I just don't know what is supposed to be included in the results (except in the very very simplest cases).
I expected compound Dynamic Searches to work like this.
- Every item shown separately in the Dynamic Search pane is separately evaluated and notionally produces a list of files.
(Exception: Where different kinds of star ratings are in the search pane and are all include or all exclude, I can see an argument for treating all the star terms as a single star ratings term combined with OR, before any other operation. Same for different colour labels.) - Then apply the AND or OR join to all of these lists of files.
(So if there is only one item in the search window, AND and OR should always produce the same results. I expected this to be the case for #3 and #4.)
Can anyone explain the sequence of logical steps used in the Dynamic Search? I'm frustrated by not understanding what is going to happen with compound searches. When I do understand it perhaps I won't agree with the approach, but at least I might be able to work out how to specify a search that gets the results I am looking for.
Thanks
... David