Feature Proposal: Query custom collections

Motivation

A couple of proposals (this one used to be known as QueryLinksAndBacklinks) seem to be somewhat mergeable:

• QueryAcrossTopicRevisions
• QueryLinksAndBacklinks (renamed to QueryCustomCollections, this thing)

An IRC discussion, established that it should be possible to 'scope' queries using the QuerySearch syntax itself, to a particular 'collection' (better term wanted)

Description and Documentation

This requires two parts spec'd out:

1. Syntax to query custom collections (and the standard 'topics' collection, which we can assume is what QuerySearch already defaults to)
2. Store/Meta/??? API changes to allow registration of new collections; different collections might want to have their own store mechanisms too, unless they represent topics?

Examples

Just brainstorming

Backlinks

• Query topics that have backlinks to a given topic

  %QUERY{"topiclinks[target='Web.TargetTopic']"}%

• Authors of topics that have backlinks to a given topic

  %QUERY{"topiclinks[target='Web.TargetTopic'].author"}%

• Query a topic for its links to other topics

  %QUERY{"topiclinks[source='Web.SourceTopic'"}%

QueryAcrossTopicRevisions

• List all revs on a topic authored by JoeBloggs

  %QUERY{"revisions[name='Web.SomeTopic' AND author='JoeBloggs']"}%

• List all revs on a topic where 'State' was Working

  %QUERY{"revisions[name='Web.SomeTopic' AND State='Working']"}%

• List all revs on a topic between Jan 1 and Sep 1

  %QUERY{"revisions[name='Web.SomeTopic' AND date >= d2n(2010-01-01) AND date <= d2n(2010-09-01)]"}%

• List all topics that have any rev whose 'State' was ever Waiting

  %QUERY{"revisions[State='Waiting']"}%

'log' DB

• Query for save actions between 12/12/2005 and 12/12/2008

  %QUERY{"log[action='save' AND '12/12/2005'<date<'12/12/2008']"}%

Standard 'topics' collection as we already know it

• Essentially, all existing QuerySearch queries operate on our existing 'topics' DB, Eg.

  %QUERY{"FieldName='SomeValue'"}%

  becomes something like:

  %QUERY{"topics[name='%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%' AND FieldName='SomeValue']"}%

QueryAccessControls

• On a vanilla foswiki, probably this will expand to %ALLOW[WEB,TOPIC]CHANGE% -

  %QUERY{"acls[topic='%WEB%.%TOPIC%' AND allowtopicchange]

  or, to flatten out groups as far as the user mapper is capable (TopicUserMapping should show only users, no groups):

  %QUERY{"acls[topic='%WEB%.%TOPIC%' AND allowtopicchange].flattened

  or to list only groups:

  %QUERY{"acls[topic='%WEB%.%TOPIC%' AND allowtopicchange AND isgroup]

  or to list flattened groups:

  %QUERY{"acls[topic='%WEB%.%TOPIC%' AND allowtopicchange AND isgroup].flattened

Impact

WhatDoesItAffect:

%WHATDOESITAFFECT%

edit

Implementation

-- Contributors: PaulHarvey - 04 Oct 2010

Discussion

it is possible that what you call a collection, is what I've been calling a ResultSet. (I say possible, because clearly, further thought is needed to define both of these terms.

• List all topics from a previous QUERY's named resultset that whose 'State' was ever Waiting

  %QUERY{"PreviouslyNamedSet[State='Waiting']"}%

-- SvenDowideit - 26 Oct 2010

Added the QueryAccessControls example

-- PaulHarvey - 07 Nov 2010