# Doing AND, OR, NOT with existing entries

**URL:** <https://discourse.jabref.org/t/doing-and-or-not-with-existing-entries/660>\
**Category:** Features\
**Created:** [June 10, 2017, 9:23am UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/doing-and-or-not-with-existing-entries/660 "2017-06-10T09:23:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![buhtz](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/buhtz/32/372_2.png) [@buhtz](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/buhtz)\
**Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 9:23am UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/doing-and-or-not-with-existing-entries/660/1 "2017-06-10T09:23:05Z")

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This is a far away feature request I would like to discuss here. If we could plan more detailes together I would summarize them later in an Issue on GitHub if you want. Currently I am using JabRef 3.8. Of course I would wait until 4.x is stable.

I would like to connect specific groups with boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT). When “connecting” two groups this way JabRef should create a new result-group with the resulting entries. For the reason that a scientific research process need to be documented/transparent the entries should be duplicated for real. So don’t add just a new group name to the groups-field. Copy it for real. Of course this behaviour should be customizable.

Background of my needs:  
Usual you would do this in a database search front-end (e.g. PubMed) of course.But sometimes they don’t offer features like that. Having a literature software offering this features would not only be a great backup for situations like that. It would be a real value for the scientific community I think.