Operators are what the system uses to compare one value to another, so a completed criteria entry is composed of a Field Name, an Operator, and a Value.
In this example, "=" is the operator, which indicates that for any record to appear in the results, the Last Name field on that record has to be "Smith."
When creating criteria, the list of operators will contain options appropriate to the selected Field Name. For example, if you choose a text field like "Address" or "Comments", all options will be available. However, if you choose a field that uses a list of values (such as Country), the only options will be Equal and Not Equal.
Options for Text
Options for Numbers
Options for Lists
It may seem odd that the > (greater than) or < (less than) operators are available for text, but it is perfectly legal to search for "Last Name < d" to find every record with a list name that starts with a, b, or c.
The following operators may be available:
•Equal - indicates that the field data must exactly match the value
•Not Equal - indicates that the field data must not match the value
•Greater Than - indicates that the field data must be larger than the value. For numeric values, it means the data must be numerically larger. For text values, it means the data must sort alphabetically after the value. i.e., "> b" means the data must start with "c-z".
•Greater Than or Equal - indicates that the field data must be equal to or larger than the value. See "Greater Than".
•Less Than - indicates that the field data must be smaller than the value. For numeric values, it means the data must be numerically lower. For text values, it means the data must sort alphabetically before the value. i.e., "< d" means the data must start with "a, b, or c".
•Less Than or Equal - indicates that the field data must be equal to or smaller than the value. See "Less Than".
•LIKE - indicates that an expression will be used to match data to a value using the % wildcard character. i.e., "%smith%" will search for the word "smith" within the data, since the leading and trailing % symbols indicate that any text can come before or after the word.
•NOT LIKE - indicates that an expression will be used to look for non-matching data using the % wildcard character. See "LIKE".
•RLIKE - Similar to LIKE, but with regular expressions.
•NOT RLIKE - Similar to NOT LIKE, but with regular expressions.