Question

Usability issue; search does not work as expected.

I like to use searches rather than manual lists where I can, so I wanted TWikiGroups to search for access group definitions. I tried to create this search:

%SEARCH{"Group$" scope="topic" noheader="on" nosearch="on" nosummary="on" type="regex"}%

(in each of the stages below I have used "Expected" instead of "Group" as the end of the topic name I want, to demonstrate the results when the query is run in this web)

OK, searching for topics whose names end in "Expected".

%SEARCH{"Expected$" scope="topic" noheader="on" nosearch="on" nosummary="on" type="regex"}%

So, cribbing the documentation, I limited it to a range of topics:

%SEARCH{"Expected$" scope="topic" topic="*Expected" noheader="on" nosearch="on" nosummary="on" type="regex"}%

Nope, still no joy. So I searched for the empty string instead, since all the topics should contain it:

%SEARCH{"" scope="topic" topic="*Expected" noheader="on" nosearch="on" nosummary="on" type="regex"}%

Losing patience, I tried this instead:

%SEARCH{"Expected" scope="topic" topic="*Expected" noheader="on" nosearch="on" nosummary="on" type="regex"}%

BTW, using regex="on" instead of type="regex" does this:

%SEARCH{"Expected$" scope="topic" noheader="on" nosearch="on" nosummary="on" regex="on"}%

%SEARCH{"Expected$" scope="topic" topic="*Expected" noheader="on" nosearch="on" nosummary="on" regex="on"}%

%SEARCH{"" scope="topic" topic="*Expected" noheader="on" nosearch="on" nosummary="on" regex="on"}%

%SEARCH{"Expected" scope="topic" topic="*Expected" noheader="on" nosearch="on" nosummary="on" regex="on"}%

Environment

-- CrawfordCurrie - 27 Feb 2004

Answer

This is a bug, followup in Codev.TypeRegexSearchDoesNotWorkAsExpected

-- PeterThoeny - 29 Feb 2004

I assume this is the right place to follow up:

1. Tried searching for topics that start with T:

%SEARCH{"T" scope="topic" regex="off" nosearch="on" order="topic" nototal="on" format="[[$topic]]"}%

Well this did not work and showed all topics (tried it in the Sandbox)

2. Then search around the twiki and found this topic. The parameter topic = "bla" is not documented at TWikiVariables so i gave it a try (note the empty search string "", because topic ist being used:

%SEARCH{"" scope="topic" topic="T*" regex="off" nosearch="on" order="topic" nototal="on" format="[[$topic]]"}%

NOP - did not work.

3. Ok, i tried also a match against the search parameter (note "*"):

%SEARCH{"*" scope="topic" topic="T*" regex="off" nosearch="on" order="topic" nototal="on" format="[[$topic]]"}%

Upps software error: Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/* <-- HERE / at ../lib/TWiki/Search.pm line 188.

4. Ok, i tried also a match against the search parameter (note "."):

%SEARCH{"." scope="topic" topic="T*" regex="off" nosearch="on" order="topic" nototal="on" format="[[$topic]]"}%

Voila - worked.

So some questions:

1. is topic an undocumented but supported parameter?
2. why does scope="topic" not work. My understanding is that this limits the search to the topic name.
3. what matches against the search string if scope="topic"? I would expect the topic name, but this would not explain the 1. and 4. testcase. It seems to match against text.
4. if testcase 3 is not a bug, what would be the proper value for a wildcard?

-- WolfgangAlper - 23 Feb 2005

1. Hmm, the topic="" parameter is documented in TWikiSearch
2. Topic name search is possible. Search for ".*" if regex is on
3. Same. Either omit regex parameter for literal search or use regex="on" for regex search. Actually, better to use type="" since regex is deprecated
4. ".*" scope="topic" topic="T*" regex="on" etc

Better to open a new question topic for a new question.

-- PeterThoeny - 06 Apr 2005