An information retrieval query language is a query language

Query language

Query languages are computer languages used to make queries into databases and information systems.Broadly, query languages can be classified according to whether they are database query languages or information retrieval query languages...

 used to make queries into database, where the semantics of the query are defined not by a precise rendering of a formal syntax, but by an interpretation of the most suitable results of the query.

Of importance in IR query languages is weighting and ranking, "relevance-orientation", semantic relativism and logic-based probabilism.

An example of an IR query language is Contextual Query Language (CQL), a formal language for representing queries to Information Retrieval systems such as web indexes, bibliographic catalogs and museum collection information.

See also

• Controlled vocabulary
  Controlled vocabulary
  Controlled vocabularies provide a way to organize knowledge for subsequent retrieval. They are used in subject indexing schemes, subject headings, thesauri, taxonomies and other form of knowledge organization systems...
  
  
• Free text searching
• Information retrieval
  Information retrieval
  Information retrieval is the area of study concerned with searching for documents, for information within documents, and for metadata about documents, as well as that of searching structured storage, relational databases, and the World Wide Web...
  
  
• SQL
  SQL
  SQL is a programming language designed for managing data in relational database management systems ....
  
  
• Text retrieval
  Document retrieval
  Document retrieval is defined as the matching of some stated user query against a set of free-text records. These records could be any type of mainly unstructured text, such as newspaper articles, real estate records or paragraphs in a manual...
  
  
• Database query language