When you should use the Search API

Search vs Query API

Encoding

1. word

2. email

3. phone

4. criteria

4.1 Date in criteria

4.2 DateTime in criteria(search value encoded)

4.3 Currency and Decimal in criteria

4.4 Boolean in criteria

4.5 Lookup in criteria

4.6 Picklist in criteria

 4.7 User/Owner Lookup in criteria

4.8 Text in criteria

4.9 Email in criteria

4.10 Phone in criteria

4.11 Website in criteria

Note

• You can search for a maximum of 10 criteria (with same or different columns) with equals and starts_with conditions.
• When you use "equals" for multiple conditions, and if one of your conditions is (Company:equals:ABC), the response will contain records with ABC as well as ABC Inc in their Company fields.
• When you use "equals" with a single condition and search for a field, like (Campaign_Name:equals:CRM), the response will contain only those records whose Campaign_Name is "CRM" and not records with "Best CRM" or "Latest CRM" in their Campaign_Name fields.
• The phone, word, and email parameters search for all fields whose datatype is phone, text, and email, respectively. But, when you use them in the criteria parameter, the search is restricted only to that particular field as you give the field's API name.