I have a client who has product numbers dating back years and years that have a format of 

"123-4567"

When searching with the previous versions of Weblink the dashes always meant that they searched anything starting with 123 that didn't contain 4567. 

As a result when we deployed them we needed to recompile the ASP scripts to include javascript that would change the search text to "123&4567" automatically. 

In the new version is this still needed? If there is a dash with no space in front of it is it handled the same?
I would expect a "-" with a space in front of it to be handled as a negative, and a dash embedded without spaces to not handle as a negative.   This is how Google and most other search providers handle these.