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Property-Name Syntax

Note

Indexing Service is no longer supported as of Windows XP and is unavailable for use as of Windows 8. Instead, use Windows Search for client side search and Microsoft Search Server Express for server side search.

 

The long form of Dialect 2 expresses property names using the {prop} tag. The general syntax for a property name is the following.

{prop name = <property_name>} [{/prop}]

For completeness, the optional closing tag {/prop} is supported. This tag can be used for clarity when specifying relational operators with properties. Property names are case-insensitive, and if property_name consists of more than one word, the words must be quoted. The short form uses the "@" character as a prefix to indicate the property name.

The following table summarizes property names and their long and short forms.

Long Form Short Form
{prop name = property_name} [{/prop}] @property_name

 

The Contents property, @Contents in short form, is a special case. This property refers to the contents of the text-type property of a document. When a query doesn't specify a property name, @Contents is assumed.

Properties available for all documents include the following.

Property Name Description
All Matches words, phrases, and any property.
Contents Words and phrases in the document.
Filename Name of the document.
Size Document size.
Write Last time the document was modified.

 

A query can also use Microsoft ActiveX property values. Documents created by most ActiveX-aware applications can be queried for the following properties.

Property Name Description
DocTitle Title of the document.
DocSubject Subject of the document.
DocAuthor Author of the document.
DocKeywords Keywords for the document.
DocComments Comments about the document.

 

There is also a list of additional standard Indexing Service properties that are available in queries. For the list, see Default Property Names for a Web Catalog.

The following table illustrates several property names in both long and short form.

Long Form Short Form
{prop name = filename} @filename
{prop name = "shoe size" @"shoe size"
{prop name = contents} @contents
{prop name = all} @all