Sharing a result

The share link

The laboratory keeps its whole state in the address bar: terms, scope, skip range, direction, the sequence you selected, the matrix width and the view. So the link is the result. When someone opens it, their own device runs the search again and shows the same picture. There is no stored screenshot to trust.

Long links are awkward in a text message, so you can also make a short code. It looks like torahcodex.com/s/ followed by a few letters. It opens the same state and carries a verification hash of the search.

Images and data

On a phone, Share opens the usual share sheet with the image and the short link together. A Divine Name in an export is always in its reverent form, because a file has no setting to consult. Files name the term, the scope and the skip so that you can find them later.

The verification line

Every export carries one line in small type: Torah Codex, the stream version and a short hash of the search. It exists for one reason. If your image travels without your words, the line goes with it, and it ties the picture to the exact text and settings that made it.

A pre-registered search adds a badge. To make one, press Lock first in the laboratory. The server keeps the terms, scope, skips and directions with its own time, before any result exists, and it will not lock terms your account has already searched. The badge means that record exists. It says nothing about a search run on another account, or in another program. Width, selection and controls stay open, and the trial counter goes on counting them. Any search can be shared with no badge. The badge only says what happened, and the code on the file opens the page where the ledger is read again.

Sharing honestly

A picture travels further than its caveats. When you share a result, keep these with it.

• The count and the chance figure, side by side. The laboratory includes them.
• How many things you tried. The trial counter has that number, so state it.
• What you searched and did not find.
• Which text was counted. A result belongs to this text, the Leningrad Codex, and may not hold in another edition.

If you post to a group, the short link is the best thing to include. Anyone who opens it can change a setting and watch the number move. That does more good than any caveat. Please do not present a result as telling anyone anything about their future, their health or a living person. Nothing here supports such a reading. A sequence is a position and a distance.

Saving your work

With an account you can save matrices and searches and return to them on any device. Saved work holds the same state as a share link, so it always reopens exactly. Your locked searches are kept in a ledger with the date they were locked, and a lock cannot be deleted, whatever the result. Your exports are listed beside them, with the search behind each file. If you delete your account, your saved work goes with it.

Links and images work for anyone. Reading a shared result needs no account: the reader, gallery and guides are open to all. Running a new search takes a free account.

Checking someone else's result

If somebody sends you a matrix from anywhere, here is what to do. Find the term, skip and start. If they give a verse, open it in our Tanakh reader. Run the same term in the laboratory with the skip set exactly, and see whether the sequence is there. Check which edition they used: many tools still search the Koren text, so a sequence found there may not exist in ours, and the reverse is true too. Then read the chance figure, and ask how many tries came before the picture you were shown.

You may also find that a story has changed in retelling. Our gallery has examples where the popular version names a starting letter that does not work, while a nearby one does. Checking takes a minute, and you can do it yourself.