(the following documentation was extracted from http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/SearchingZCatalog.stx)

In simple search fields you can use the following grammar in order to be able to perform more advanced searches:

• Search for boolean expressions like word1 AND word2. This will search for all objects that contain both "word1" and "word2". Valid boolean operators include AND, OR, and NOT. A synonym for NOT is a leading hyphen '-': for example: word1 -word2.
• Control search order with parenthetical expressions ((word1 AND word2) OR word3). This will return objects containing "word1" and "word2" or just objects that contain the term "word3".
• Use simple wild cards like "Z*", which returns all words that begin with "Z", or "Zop?" which returns all words that begin with "Zop" and have one more character.
• Search for phrases using double-quoted text.

All of these advanced features can be mixed together. For example, "((bob AND uncle) AND NOT Zoo*)" will return all objects that contain the terms "bob" and "uncle" but will not include any objects that contain words that start with "Zoo" like "Zoologist", "Zoology", or "Zoo" itself.