### Help:

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# ViewVC Help: Query The Commit Database

Select your parameters for querying the CVS commit database in the form at the top of the page. You can search for multiple matches by typing a comma-seperated list into the text fields. Regular expressions, and wildcards are also supported. Blank text input fields are treated as wildcards.

Any of the text entry fields can take a comma-seperated list of search arguments. For example, to search for all commits from authors jpaint and gstein, just type: `jpaint, gstein` in the Author input box. If you are searching for items containing spaces or quotes, you will need to quote your request. For example, the same search above with quotes is: `"jpaint", "gstein"`.

Wildcard and regular expression searches are entered in a similar way to the quoted requests. You must quote any wildcard or regular expression request, and a command character preceeds the first quote. The command character `l`(lowercase L) is for wildcard searches, and the wildcard character is a percent (`%`). The command character for regular expressions is `r`, and is passed directly to MySQL, so you'll need to refer to the MySQL manual for the exact regex syntax. It is very similar to Perl. A wildard search for all files with a .py extention is: `l"%.py"` in the File input box. The same search done with a regular expression is: `r".*\.py"`.

All search types can be mixed, as long as they are seperated by commas.