QUEST(1) User Commands QUEST(1)
quest - Xapian command line search tool
quest [OPTIONS] 'QUERY'
quest - Xapian command line search tool
NB: QUERY should be quoted to protect it from the shell.
-d, --db=DIRECTORY
database to search (multiple databases may be specified)
-m, --msize=MSIZE
maximum number of matches to return
-c, --check-at-least=HOWMANY
minimum number of matches to check
-s, --stemmer=LANG
set the stemming language, the default is 'english' (pass
'none' to disable stemming). Valid stemmers: arabic,
armenian, basque, catalan, danish, dutch, earlyenglish,
english, finnish, french, german, german2, hungarian,
indonesian, irish, italian, kraaij_pohlmann, lithuanian,
lovins, nepali, norwegian, porter, portuguese, romanian,
russian, spanish, swedish, tamil, turkish
-S, --stem-strategy=STRATEGY
set the stemming strategy (default: some). Valid strategies:
all, all_z, none, some, some_full_pos
-p, --prefix=PFX:TERMPFX
add a prefix
-b, --boolean-prefix=PFX:TERMPFX
add a boolean prefix
-f, --flags=FLAG1[,FLAG2]...
specify QueryParser flags (default: default). Valid flags:
accumulate, auto_multiword_synonyms, auto_synonyms, boolean,
boolean_any_case, cjk_ngram, default, lovehate, ngrams,
no_positions, partial, phrase, pure_not, spelling_correction,
synonym, wildcard
-o, --default-op=OP
specify QueryParser default operator (default: or). Valid
operators: and, elite_set, max, near, or, phrase, synonym
-w, --weight=SCHEME
specify weighting scheme to use (default: bm25). Valid
schemes: bb2, bm25, bm25+, bool, coord, dlh, dph, ifb2, ineb2,
inl2, lm, pl2, pl2+, tfidf, trad
-F, --freqs
show query term frequencies
-h, --help
display this help and exit
-v, --version
output version information and exit
xapian-core 1.4.31 February 2026 QUEST(1)
NAME
quest - Xapian command line search tool
SYNOPSIS
quest [OPTIONS] 'QUERY'
DESCRIPTION
quest - Xapian command line search tool
NB: QUERY should be quoted to protect it from the shell.
OPTIONS
-d, --db=DIRECTORY
database to search (multiple databases may be specified)
-m, --msize=MSIZE
maximum number of matches to return
-c, --check-at-least=HOWMANY
minimum number of matches to check
-s, --stemmer=LANG
set the stemming language, the default is 'english' (pass
'none' to disable stemming). Valid stemmers: arabic,
armenian, basque, catalan, danish, dutch, earlyenglish,
english, finnish, french, german, german2, hungarian,
indonesian, irish, italian, kraaij_pohlmann, lithuanian,
lovins, nepali, norwegian, porter, portuguese, romanian,
russian, spanish, swedish, tamil, turkish
-S, --stem-strategy=STRATEGY
set the stemming strategy (default: some). Valid strategies:
all, all_z, none, some, some_full_pos
-p, --prefix=PFX:TERMPFX
add a prefix
-b, --boolean-prefix=PFX:TERMPFX
add a boolean prefix
-f, --flags=FLAG1[,FLAG2]...
specify QueryParser flags (default: default). Valid flags:
accumulate, auto_multiword_synonyms, auto_synonyms, boolean,
boolean_any_case, cjk_ngram, default, lovehate, ngrams,
no_positions, partial, phrase, pure_not, spelling_correction,
synonym, wildcard
-o, --default-op=OP
specify QueryParser default operator (default: or). Valid
operators: and, elite_set, max, near, or, phrase, synonym
-w, --weight=SCHEME
specify weighting scheme to use (default: bm25). Valid
schemes: bb2, bm25, bm25+, bool, coord, dlh, dph, ifb2, ineb2,
inl2, lm, pl2, pl2+, tfidf, trad
-F, --freqs
show query term frequencies
-h, --help
display this help and exit
-v, --version
output version information and exit
xapian-core 1.4.31 February 2026 QUEST(1)