PerlMonks has its own search features, described below. In addition, you should be able to use off-site web search engines such as Google.

Searching PerlMonks

Using the Simple Search
Using Super Search

Patterns in PerlMonks Searches

Using the Simple Search (Top)

Using the Simple Search

At the top of almost every page on PerlMonks is a search box. This lets you easily search for nodes by title.
If you enter a string which is the exact title of exactly one node, you will be taken directly to that node.
If there are multiple nodes with that exact title, you will be presented with a list of those nodes.

If no nodes are found with the exact title queried, then Simple Search conveniently falls through to Super Search, which executes your query as a title search.

Using Super Search (Top)

Using Super Search

Super Search lets you perform much more advanced searches of content in PerlMonks. Here you may search by node or title content and by author, and you can restrict the search to certain sections of PerlMonks.
You can tell Super Search to include or exclude any of the following:

nodes with certain text in the title
nodes with certain text in the body
nodes by certain authors
root nodes
replies
nodes in certain sections of the site

Super Search lists the search results with the following columns of information:

creation date
author
title
section/root

That last column indicates whether the node is a root post in the given section or a reply. If it is a root post, it is a link to the containing section. If it is a reply, it is a link to the root node of the the containing thread.

If you want to search among writeups of a particular monk, there are two ways to do this. Either you can enter the monk's username to the “authors” field; or visit the monk's home node and there follow the “Search nodes” field in the “For this user” line which drops you to Super Search with the author field pre-filled.

Patterns in PerlMonks Searches (Top)

Patterns in PerlMonks Searches

Neither search method supports any kind of patterns! Do not be tempted to try a regex, or anything remotely like one. Not even wildcards!

No, all strings are interpreted as plain, simple strings. Search/SuperSearch simply look for these strings occurring anywhere in the title or body. (Search looks only in titles; SuperSearch looks in titles or bodies, as you choose.) No word boundaries are inferred, either. And all searching is case-insensitive.

Note that, in SuperSearch, the default string separator is space, but this can be changed. In Quick Search, this default cannot be overridden.