Advanced search options on the Broadcom Support Portal

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Support Portal

Issue/Introduction

Learn how to perform advanced search and use search operators on the Broadcom Support Portal at https://support.broadcom.com/web/ecx/search.

Search operators
(See the full list in the Resolution section of this article)
- AND (default for standard searches)
- OR (default for advanced searches)
- NOT
- " " (exact match search)
- +
- * (wildcard search)
- ? (single wildcard search)
Advanced search
Special characters

Resolution

Our search engine supports three Boolean operators, an exact match capability, and two wildcards—for terms and characters, respectively.

Both basic and advanced searches default to the AND operator between words.
Use uppercase AND, OR, and NOT for advanced search operators. Any lowercase use of these words will be ignored as they are considered stop words (e.g. words that are ignored in a search query).

September 12, 2022 Update: To use advanced search operators, you no longer need to prefix your search query with a hashtag/pound symbol (#) and then a space.

Search operators

Operator	Description	Example
AND or use &&	Returns content containing the terms or phrases on the left and right of AND. Notes: AND is the default search operator on all basic and advanced searches. The difference between the default search and the "AND" or "&&" operators is that "AND" or "&&" will only display results with an exact match of the words in your search (so other forms of the words and any synonyms are excluded, and thus you will see fewer results).	content AND source AND dynamics Finds content that has all three keywords: "content", "source", and "dynamics," not necessarily in that order.
OR or use \|\|	Finds content containing either of the terms or phrases around OR or \|\|.	install OR upgrade Finds content that has either "install" or "upgrade".
NOT	Excludes content containing the term or phrase immediately followed by NOT.	Example 1: sep NOT "sep on premises" Finds content with the keyword "sep," but not with "sep on premises". Example 2: sep 14.3 NOT mp1 Finds content with the keywords "sep" or "14.3" but not with the keyword "mp1".
" "	Double quotes function as exact match operators. Finds content containing the exact phrase or term. Note: Stemming will not be applied (e.g. installing, installation, installer). However, stop words will be included.	Example 1: "recognise" This search will ignore content that has "recognize," "recognized," "recognised," "recognization," and other forms of "recognise". Example 2: "install" failed This search will return content with "install" or "failed," but not content that has "installed", "installing", "installation," and other forms of "install". Example 3: "no route to host" Finds content with an exact match of the string "no route to host," including stop words (e.g. the word "to" in this example).
+	The plus character limits the search to content that contains the term or phrase following +. Note: When using the plus character (+) to perform a search, do not use a space. Adding one or more keywords after + will give preference to the AND operator first, and then to the OR operator.	dlp +15 Finds content that necessarily has the keyword "15", along with "dlp". cleanwipe +tool Finds content that necessarily has the keyword "tool", along with "cleanwipe". cleanwipe +removal tool Finds content that necessarily has the keyword "removal", along with "cleanwipe", while "tool" uses the OR operator.
*	The asterisk symbol is used as a wildcard for a single term. Note: Use quotes when using wildcards within a phrase (example 1). Do not use quotes when using wildcards with a single word or words joined by a period. (examples 2 and 3).	Example 1: "how to * symantec endpoint protection" Finds content with phrases such as: how to install symantec endpoint protection how to upgrade symantec endpoint protection how to uninstall symantec endpoint protection Example 2: ConcurrentModificationException Finds content with keywords or phrases such as: java.util.ConcurrentModificationException Example 3:* introscope.enterprisemanager.metrics* Finds content with keywords or phrases such as: introscope.enterprisemanager.metrics introscope.enterprisemanager.metrics.live.limit introscope.enterprisemanager.metrics.historical.limit Note: The period between the words "introscope.enterprisemanager.metrics" forces search to treat this as a single phrase.
?	The question mark symbol functions as a wildcard for a single character.	synchroni?e Finds both "synchronize" and "synchronise".

Additional advanced search refinement

You can also use the Advanced Search feature to refine your query. Just click the Advanced Search button or icon.

With the exact phrase - Search terms are enclosed in quotation marks, and your query is searched as it is. A search for "recognise" will not find the documents with the spelling "recognize."
With one or more words - Search terms surrounding the Boolean operator OR. resulting in all documents containing even one word from the multi-word query being returned. For example, a search for "endpoint protection" will return documents containing the terms "endpoint", "protection", and "endpoint protection."
Without the words - Search terms preceded by the Boolean operator NOT, resulting in documents containing the query being excluded. endpoint NOT protection finds all documents with a mention of "endpoint" but without "protection."

Search filters

Use facets (e.g. filters) to narrow the scope of your search. For example, in the left search menu, under Products, search for the name of your product, and then check the appropriate box for the product.

If you need to expand the list of items in the facet, click Show more. Or, click Show less to collapse the list of items.

Special characters

You can use the following special characters when performing a basic search:

(
)
&
@
>
<
$
%
^
=
:
.
/
-
+
*
#
'

Note: In advanced search (when using #), some special characters act as operators. For example:

The question mark character (?) acts as a wildcard for a single character.
The asterisk character (*) serves as a whole-word wildcard.
The plus character (+) limits results to content that contains the term or phrase following +.
All other special characters are ignored in an advanced search.