Omnidex Sentinel Character

The Omnidex Sentinel Character (% by default) is used to allow Omnidex style boolean criteria within a single where clause predicate.

For example, to qualify companies that contain the words 'Systems' or 'Software',

Without the Omnidex sentinel character,

select * from prospects where company='Systems or Software'

would only qualify records containing the words 'Systems' and 'or' and 'Software' in the company name.

Without the Omnidex sentinel character, the where clause predicate could be divided into two separate predicates,

select * from prospects where company='Systems' OR company='Software'

This would produce correct results, however, the Omnidex sentinel character allows the following:

select * from prospects where company='%systems or software'

The sentinel character informs Omnidex that this predicate is in Omnidex syntax and should be treated as such.

The Omnidex sentinel character is most commonly used with ODXID and Multifind files.