WITH

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Last Updated: May 13, 2026
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Semaphore
Documentation

The WITH rule identifies an occurrence of two or more elements in the same field. A field could be a whole document or the title or some other structure.

The score is dependent on the minimum distance between the elements. A distance bands table containing 101 values is associated to the 0-100 weight range as illustrated below. For example a WITH rule with two elements distant by 28 words will score 92. It also implies that elements that are further than 843 positions apart will not lead to any score.

NB it is always the minimum distance used so if several children are used the calculation will use whichever 2 are closest together in the document

Weight	100	99	98	97	96	95	94	93	92	91
Distance	0	2	5	7	8	11	14	22	27	29

Weight	90	89	88	87	86	85	84	93	82	81
Distance	36	39	42	45	50	55	58	62	66	70

Weight	80	79	78	77	76	75	74	73	72	71
Distance	72	75	77	82	85	88	90	95	98	101

Weight	70	69	68	67	66	65	64	63	62	61
Distance	105	107	110	115	118	120	123	127	130	135

Weight	60	59	58	57	56	55	54	53	52	51
Distance	138	141	145	149	152	155	160	162	167	173

Weight	50	49	48	47	46	45	44	43	42	41
Distance	175	180	185	190	195	200	204	208	210	215

Weight	40	39	38	37	36	35	34	33	32	31
Distance	220	223	228	233	238	243	250	255	262	270

Weight	30	29	28	27	26	25	24	23	22	21
Distance	276	285	295	304	310	320	325	334	341	350

Weight	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11
Distance	358	365	375	385	400	410	420	429	440	450

Weight	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1
Distance	475	500	525	528	550	581	646	732	793	843

Since Semaphore 3.5 the DATA attribute is now supported for this rule. The provided text will be parsed and each token found will be appended as a child text rule. This is mainly as a convenience to avoid typing but also avoids issues where the tokenisation is not easily determined for the text

Attributes

_KEY
DATA // New from Semaphore version 3.5 on //
LABEL
NOT
SCALE
WEIGHT - In this case weight is used as a scaling factor - If the resulting score of the children is 50 (0.5) and weight is set to 80 (0.80) the returned score will be (score * weight / 100) or 40 (0.40)

Children

Example

The following rulebase fragment

   <with weight="100">
        <text data="Jean-Claude Trichet" />
        <text data="inflation" />
   </with>

Used with the following document body

Jean-Claude Trichet announced today a rise of 1/2 point in interest rates.
In a separate intervention the governor of the European Central Bank announced that the
institution will keep a firm handle on inflation.

is separated by 32 words so will fire the rule with a score of “0.90”

Semaphore Classification Server Rulebase Reference

WITH

Table of Contents

WITH

Attributes

Children

Example