Support : Dialog Search Aids : Successful Searching : RANK

RANK

The RANK command allows you to perform trend or statistical analysis on an existing set. The Dialog system extracts terms from a specified field and lists them in ranked order. The term that appears most frequently is listed first, followed by the other terms, in descending order of frequency.

After you enter RANK followed by a field code (e.g., RANK PA), you will be prompted with menu options to customize your RANK information in the following ways:

• Add a title to ranked output
• Receive continuous output
• Sort ranked terms alphabetically
• Include such items as percentages, total database counts, and file-specific counts in a ranked list in a OneSearch^® session
• Sort numeric entries in descending order

Once a term is ranked, the top eight terms are automatically displayed. Each ranked term is assigned a "rank number" that can be used to save a term for later use.

You can also bypass the menu and enter any of the above options in a single command line (e.g., RANK PA S2/ALL CONT ALPHA DETAIL). See RANK OPTIONS for a list of option abbreviations.

You can rank multiple fields with similar data (e.g., RANK DE, ID). You can also rank partial fields by placing the field code and the range of characters you want to rank in parentheses. For example, to rank only the first four characters of the International Patent Classification Code, enter RANK (IC 1-4).

Enter the rank number next to the terms you wish to save in a SearchSave. You must exit the RANK menu to execute the SearchSave.

To display the records included in a RANK display, enter the VIEW command followed by the rank number, format, and items to display, e.g., VIEW 1/3/1-10.

For online help with the RANK command, enter HELP RANK.

Note: RANK is designed to work with most phrase-indexed Additional Index fields, most numeric Additional Index fields, and phrase-indexed Descriptor (DE) and Identifier (ID) Basic Index fields. RANK also works with all MAP fields. However, to minimize retrieval of inappropriate data, RANK does not work in any word-indexed fields.

Usage Notes:

DialogLink 5: In addition to the RANK command, the VISUAL RANK (VR) command, a graphical version of RANK, is available.

(RANK Example) 

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