SID-00423: Searching for empty fields in a query search

Status:	Unanswered	TWiki version:	4.3.1	Perl version:
Category:	CategorySearch	Server OS:		Last update:	16 years ago

What is the best way (ie most robust, future proof, efficient, etc) of searching for topics with a form attached, where a specified field is blank?

The scenario is as follows. For whatever reason, I now want to check whether a certain field has been populated (is non blank) in all the topics that use a form. It may be that I have added a new field to the form, and want to monitor progress of data completion in that new field. So, I want to reliably find the ones that are still blank.

Say the form was called TestForm, and I wanted to find all topics where a field on the form, say, NewField was blank; A search using QuerySearch is naturally where one would start. I can use a query like:

TestForm AND NewField.name

which is TRUE for all topics that have the form and have the new field. This is a useful first step, eg. to find topics that don't yet have the new field (ie probably havent been updated since I added the new field). But to find the ones where the field exists but is not yet populated, what's the best way? The nearest I can get is:

TestForm AND NewField.name AND (NewField < ' ')

Is there a better way? (thanks for your attention)

-- GrahamWatson - 2009-07-16

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