SEFT: A search engine for text

Abstract

We present a software tool called seft which balances the convenience of search tools such as grap with the functionality of full-text index-based information retrieval. Based on a novel retrieval heuristic which uses term locality as a guide to relevance, seft combines the freedom of natural language queries with the benefits of a ranked answer list and easy inspection of retrieval results. While not as fast as grep-style tools, seft provides a valuable facility for impromptu personal information retrieval tasks. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.