Difference: QuerySearch (4 vs. 5)

Revision 52010-02-10 - TWikiContributor

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META TOPICPARENT name="TWikiVariables"

Query Search

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  • web - name of the web the topic is within
  • text - the body text of the topic
  • META:FILEATTACHMENT
Added:
>
>
    • arraysize
 
    • for each attachment
      • name
      • attr
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  • META:FORM - the main form of the topic
    • name (known as the formname)
  • META:FIELD - the fields in the form.
Added:
>
>
    • arraysize
 
    • for each field in the form
      • name
      • title
      • value
  • META:PREFERENCE
Added:
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>
    • arraysize
 
    • for each preference in the topic
      • name
      • value

See TWikiMetaData for details of what all these entries mean.

Changed:
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<		Most things at the top level of the plan - META:TOPICPARENT, META:TOPICINFO etc - are structures which are indexed by keys. For example, META:TOPICINFO has 4 entries, which are indexed by the keys author, date, format and version. META:FILEATTACHMENT, META:FIELD and META:PREFERENCE are all arrays, which means they can have any number of records under them. Arrays are indexed by numbers - for example, the first entry in the META:FIELD array is entry 0.
>
>		Most things at the top level of the plan - META:TOPICPARENT, META:TOPICINFO etc - are structures which are indexed by keys. For example, META:TOPICINFO has 4 entries, which are indexed by the keys author, date, format and version. META:FILEATTACHMENT, META:FIELD and META:PREFERENCE are all arrays, which means they can have any number of records under them. Arrays are indexed by numbers - for example, the first entry in the META:FIELD array is entry 0. The field specifier arraysize returns the number of items in an array, for example, attachments.arraysize returns the number of attachments.
  It's a bit clumsy having to type META:FILEATTACHMENT every time you want to refer to the array of attachments in a topic, so there are some predefined aliases that make it a bit less typing:
  • attachments means the same as META:FILEATTACHMENT
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 This plan is referenced using a simple syntax:
Syntax Means Examples
X refers to the field named X. info, META:TOPICMOVED, attachments, name.
Changed:
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<
X.Y refers to the entry with the key Y in the structure named X info.date, moved.by, META:TOPICPARENT.name
>
>
X.Y refers to the entry with the key Y in the structure named X info.date, moved.by, META:TOPICPARENT.name, attachments.arraysize
 
X[query] refers to all the elements of the array X that match query. If query is of the form name='Y' then you can use the same X.Y syntax as is used for accessing structures. attachments[size>1024], DocumentForm[name!='Summary' AND value~'top secret'].value, DocumentForm.Summary
X[N] where X is an array and N is an integer number >= 0, gets the Nth element of the array X attachments[3]
X/Y accesses Y from the topic specified by the value of X. X must evaluate to a topic name parent.name/(form.name='ExampleForm') will evaluate to true if (1) the topic has a parent, (2) the parent topic has the main form type ExampleForm.
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 If X would conflict with the name of an entry or alias (e.g. it's moved or maybe parent), you can prepend the name of the form followed by a dot, as shown in the last example.

Constants

Changed:
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<		You use constants for the values that you compare with fields. Constants are either strings, or numbers. Strings are always delimited by single-quotes (you can escape a quote using backslash). Numbers can be any integer or floating point number.
>
>		 You use constants for the values that you compare with fields. Constants are either strings, or numbers. Strings are always delimited by single-quotes (you can escape a quote using backslash). Numbers can be any integer or floating point number. Constants can be supplied by TWikiVariables, such as '%TOPIC%' representing the current topic name.
 

Operators

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 IDEA! The same operators are supported for %IF statements.

Putting it all together

Added:
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>
 When a query is applied to a topic, the goal is to reduce to a TRUE or FALSE value that indicates whether the topic matches that query or not. If the query returns TRUE, then the topic is included in the search results.

A query matches if the query returns one or more values when it is applied to the topic. So if I have a very simple query, such as "attachments", then this will return TRUE for all topics that have one or more attachments. If I write "attachments[size>1024 AND name ~ '*.gif']" then it will return TRUE for all topics that have at least one attachment larger than 1024 bytes with a name ending in .gif.

Gotcha

Changed:
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<
  • Remember that in the query language, TWiki topic names are constants. You cannot write Main.UserTopic/UserForm.firstName because Main.UserTopic will be interpreted as a form field name. If you want to refer to topics you must enclose the topic name in quotes i.e. 'Main.UserTopic'/UserForm.firstName
>
>
  • Remember that in the query language, TWiki topic names are constants. You cannot write Main.JohnSmith/UserForm.FirstName because Main.JohnSmith will be interpreted as a form field name. If you want to refer to topics you must enclose the topic name in single quotes i.e. 'Main.JohnSmith'/UserForm.FirstName
 

Examples

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Examples

Query examples

Added:
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>
 
  • attachments[name='purdey.gif'] - true if there is an attachment call purdey.gif on the topic
Changed:
<
<
  • (fields[name='Firstname'].value='Emma' OR fields[name=Firstname].value='John') AND fields[name='Lastname'].value='Peel' - true for 'Emma Peel' and 'John Peel' but not 'Robert Peel' or 'Emma Thompson'
>
>
  • attachments[name~'*.gif'].arraysize > 3 - true if there are at least 4 .gif files attached to the topic
  • (fields[name='Firstname'].value='Emma' OR fields[name='Firstname'].value='John') AND fields[name='Lastname'].value='Peel' - true for 'Emma Peel' and 'John Peel' but not 'Robert Peel' or 'Emma Thompson'
 
  • (Firstname='Emma' OR Firstname='John') AND Lastname='Peel' - shortcut form of the previous query
  • HistoryForm[name='Age'].value>2 - true if the topic has a HistoryForm, and the form has a field called Age with a value > 2
  • HistoryForm.Age > 2 - shortcut for the previous query
  • preferences[name='FaveColour' AND value='Tangerine'] - true if the topic has the given preference setting and value
Changed:
<
<
  • Person/(ClothesForm[name='Headgear'].value ~ '*Bowler*' AND attachments[name~'*hat.gif' AND date < d2n('2007-01-01')]) - true if the form attached to the topic has a field called Person that has a value that is the name of a topic, and that topic contains the form ClothesForm, with a field called Headgear, and the value of that field contains the string 'Bowler', and the topic also has at least one attachment that has a name matching *hat.gif and a date before 1st Jan 2007. (Phew!)
>
>
  • Person/(ClothesForm[name='Headgear'].value ~ '*Bowler*' AND attachments[name~'*hat.gif' AND date < d2n('2007-01-01')]) - true if the form attached to the topic has a field called Person that has a value that is the name of a topic, and that topic contains the form ClothesForm, with a field called Headgear, and the value of that field contains the string 'Bowler', and the topic also has at least one attachment that has a name matching *hat.gif and a date before 1st Jan 2007. (Phew!)
 

Search examples

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 Find all topics that are children of this topic in the current web 
%SEARCH{"parent.name = '%TOPIC%'" web="%WEB%" type="query"}%
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 Searched: Threat='Amber' AND text ~ '*cold virus*'

Results from TWiki web retrieved at 04:37 (GMT)

QuerySearch
r8 - 2013-09-25 - 19:36  TWikiContributor 

<--/twikiTopRow-->
Query Search Query searches help you search the contents of forms attached to your topics, as well as the values of other meta data attached to the topic. Using query...
<--/twikiSummary-->
<--/twikiBottomRow-->
<--/patternSearchResult-->
Number of topics: 1
<--/patternSearchResultCount-->
Changed:
<
<		Related Topics: SearchHelp, VarSEARCH, FormattedSearch, TWiki:TWiki/QuerySearchPatternCookbook
>
>		Related Topics: IfStatements, SearchHelp, VarSEARCH, FormattedSearch, TWiki:TWiki/QuerySearchPatternCookbook
View topic | History: r8 < r7 < r6 < r5 | More topic actions...
 
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