Question

I have a form of type:

MyFormOne:

A topic of that form (MyFormOne) looks like this:

I assume all topics in the List row are of a form MyFormTwo which turns to be like this:

MyFormTwo:

I want for a Topic of the form MyFormOne, display in a table, each topic of the List... and display for each topic in that list, the correspond AnAttribute. Example:

• Here is the name: My name
  • Here is the list:
    • TopicOne: TheAttributeValue
    • TopicTwo: TheAttributeValue
    • TopicThree: TheAttributeValue

I have done many experience with the nested search but could not succeed.

Please help.

Environment

-- AlainLavoieDexto - 11 Jul 2008

Answer

If you answer a question - or have a question you asked answered by someone - please remember to edit the page and set the status to answered. The status is in a drop-down list below the edit box.

Which step is it that you are having trouble with?:

1. Getting the list of topics
2. Splitting the list so that each topic becomes a search value
3. Looking up the attribute for each value

I suspect it's step #2. Here's one way to do that:

   %CALC{$SET(list, TopicOne, TopicTwo, TopicThree)}%
   * %CALC{$LISTJOIN($n$sp$sp$sp*$sp, $GET(list))}%

Which renders like this:

• TopicOne
• TopicTwo
• TopicThree

Of course you would use %FORMFIELD% to get the real string, instead hard-coding it like I did.

If I misunderstood your question, perhaps you could create an example in the Sandbox web for us to look at.

-- SeanCMorgan - 14 Jul 2008

Your suggestion is good, but I could not display the "TheAttributeValue" of each topic hit. I am starting to think that I am trying to acheive something that twiki is not made for. I wish to continue with Twiki alone, because of the history changes that I can access at any time, but because of complexity searches or display, I might have to consider linking twiki with a MySql server. I will lose my history log in process but I need some complex search capability.

Thanks anyway.

-- AlainLavoieDexto - 17 Aug 2008

Instead of Name/List as field in MyFormOne, could you use the parent relationship: Name is the parent topic, and the others the children? That would seem to be a more appropriate use of TWiki, and the attribute listing would then be quite straightforward.

-- SeanCMorgan - 18 Aug 2008

If you can't use a parent relationship, then here's a solution. You need the WebPreferences to be updated in order to follow the "add form" link and update forms values. It works on TWiki 4.2.2 / freebsd 6.3. Please confirm it works for you. I used the same forms variables as you did your example :

The first search is :

%SEARCH{ "^%META.*List.*value\=.*" nosearch="on" nototal="on" web="Sandbox"  type="regex" format="   * $topic $n      * $formfield(List)" }%

%SEARCH{ "^%META.*AnAttribute.*value\=.*" nosearch="on" nototal="on"  web="Sandbox" type="regex" format="   * $topic 's Anattribute value is : $formfield(AnAttribute)" }%

%SEARCH{ "^%META.*List.*value\=.*" topic="*" nosearch="on" multiple="on" nototal="on" web="Sandbox"  type="regex" format="   * $topic $n$percntSEARCH{ search=\"^%META.*AnAttribute.*value\"  topic=\"$formfield(List)\" type=\"regex\" multiple=\"on\"  format=\"      * $dollartopic 's Anattribute value is $dollarformfield(AnAttribute) \" nosearch=\"on\" nototal=\"on\" separator=\"$dollarn\" }$nop%" nosearch="on" separator="$n"  nototal="on" }%

Note : change topic="*" to a more restricted pattern to avoid performance issue. Hope this helps.

-- OlivierThompson - 18 Aug 2008

Thanks Olivier,

It works perfectly. Finally, since Sean brought the parent-children relationship into the subject, would it be more efficient to proceed as he propose. What would the appropriate syntax ?

-- AlainLavoieDexto - 04 Sep 2008

Also refer to SearchPatternCookbookNestedForms

-- AlainLavoieDexto - 04 Sep 2008

Here is a nested search using the parent-children relationship twice. See also TreePlugin and TreeBrowserPlugin. The formfields I used are the same as in SearchPatternCookbookNestedForms.
If you can avoid complexity, then "keep it simple" with parent-children relationship. Hope this helps.

%SEARCH{ "^%META\:TOPICPARENT.*\"%TOPIC%\"" topic="Book*" type="regex" nonoise="on" format="   * [[$topic]] $n$percntSEARCH{ search=\"^%META\:TOPICPARENT.*$topic\"   type=\"regex\" multiple=\"on\"  format=\"      * $dollartopic : ISBN $dollarformfield(ISBN) \" nosearch=\"on\" nototal=\"on\" separator=\"$dollarn\" }$nop%" separator="$n" excludetopic="*Form"}%

-- OlivierThompson - 07 Sep 2008

Thanks to all.

-- AlainLavoieDexto - 12 Sep 2008

-- AlainLavoieDexto - 12 Sep 2008