How does search work?

Hi,

I'm having trouble underdtanding how searching works, using the simplest way I have found for using baseportal. In particular, here is part of the template I use to render (and control access to) the database:



<do action=all border=1 datasize=2 sort^=Last range^=0,20 pagebrowse=top buttonbrowse=bottom listtype=list listfields=First,Last,Background,Street,Phone,EMail,Which input=link>


With this simple fragment of code, I get a very nice web presentation of a database that allows members of a committee to enter contact information.

The problem I am having is understanding how to search the database. When I click on the "search" tab and fill in a string to search for, I don't get the results I expect to get. In particular, if I am looking for, say, the string "official" in a text field, the search doesn't return a record that contains "the official results". This leades me to believe that search strings only support matches from the start of a field.

If this is true, I am wondering is there some additional syntax I can use to get the results I want? What notation is use to search for patterns?

Thanks,
     Harry