Ask HN: How do you search for "-42" in Google?

Similar question for command line options in unix. :)

"-42"

I'm reasonably sure that Google doesn't index punctuation marks.

Punctuation is generally ignored in searches (some exceptions: _, +, $ and # in limited contexts, e.g. "C++", "$1000000" and "F#"; the calculator; word separators, e.g. "a=b", "a/b", "a}b", etc.; Google Code Search)

http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer... http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer...

Also, how do you search for anything with punctuation? I frequently use Perl, which makes use of punctuation for functions, and am constantly frustrated on how you can't search Google for them. Try searching for "perl $!" and you won't get any pages referring to Perl's error handling function. Not even results referencing Perl code that uses it. Google just ignores it.

C'mon...you've now gotta tell us why you were searching for "-42"...

this reminds me of the worst band name of all-time: !!!

they're actually fairly popular for those that aren't familiar, but i can only imagine how many potential fans they've lost because you can't readily find their online presences.

do search for negative 42. spell the word out. if you are lucky then google will pick up the integer -42 as a synonym and search it too.

search for minus 42.