SID-02458: Using the number of topics from a search in an IF-statement

Status:	Answered	TWiki version:	6.1.0	Perl version:	5.30.0
Category:	CategoryApplications	Server OS:		Last update:	5 years ago

I'm trying to use the number of topics resulting from a search in a conditional statement like $IF... or %CALC{$IF...

Here is an example of the search to get the number of topics:

%SEARCH{ "(StaffForm.Dept = 'Marketing' and StaffForm.DeptLeader != '--'" type="query" nosearch="on" nototal="on" format="$ntopics"  }%

How would I create a conditional -- $IF... or %CALC{$IF... -- that would display a NOP if the number of topics resulting from the above search is zero?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

-- Bob Mellinger - 2020-10-15

Discussion and Answer

Based on FormattedSearch, format="$ntopics" returns the number of topics found, and sine it's the format parameter it's for each hit. You can use the footer="" to get the number just once. You can specify format="<nop>" and separator="<nop>" to oppress any output besides the footer.

As for showing NOP if zero hits you can use a %If{}% or a %CALCULATE{$IF()}%. In both cases you need to delay the execution until after the SEARCH. Do that by escaping % with $percnt, such as $percntIf{}$percnt.

Untested: footer="$percntIf{ \"$ntopics > 0\" then=\"$ntopics\" else=\"NOP\" }$percnt". See docs at IfStatements.

Alternatively, (also untested) use %CALCULATE{$SET(num, 0)}% before SEARCH, format="$percntCALCULATE{$SETM(num, +1)}$percnt" in the SEARCH, and %CALCULATE{$IF($GET(num) > 0, $GET(num), NOP)}% after SEARCH. See SpreadSheetPlugin.

-- Peter Thoeny - 2020-10-16

What you provided worked as you intended, though it did not actually solve my problem. It appears that in trying to solve my problem, I actually asked the question in the wrong way.

Here is the table I've created. It's from a Staff Form where each staff person can be assigned to up to 3 departments (Dept1, Dept2 & Dept3). And there is a Role (leadership assignment) for each department within a given Staff Form.

We've created a table (see below) to display ONLY the staff with leadership assignments.

%TABLE{ sort="on" initsort="2" }%
| *Name* |  *Role* | *Department* |
%SEARCH{ "(StaffForm.Dept1 = 'Marketing' and StaffForm.DeptLeader1 != '--'" type="query" nosearch="on" nototal="on" format="| $formfield(FirstName) $formfield(LastName)]] | $formfield(DeptLeader1) | $formfield(Dept1) |"  }%
%SEARCH{ "(StaffForm.Dept2 = 'Marketing' and StaffForm.DeptLeader2 != '--'" type="query" nosearch="on" nototal="on" format="| $formfield(FirstName) $formfield(LastName)]] | $formfield(DeptLeader2) | $formfield(Dept2) |"  }%
%SEARCH{ "(StaffForm.Dept3 = 'Marketing' and StaffForm.DeptLeader3 != '--'" type="query" nosearch="on" nototal="on" format="| $formfield(FirstName) $formfield(LastName)]] | $formfield(DeptLeader3) | $formfield(Dept3) |  }%

Here's the issue. If the first or second search results in no topics found, a blank line is displayed and subsequent lines are not connected to the original table.

Here is an example when the second search results in no topics found:

Any idea as to what I'm missing or what can be done to keep the entire table intact?

Thanks.

-- Bob Mellinger - 2020-10-16

Ah, if the SEARCH returns nothing, you get an empty line, which splits the table into two tables. To work around this, add a <nop> directly after each SEARCH; the whole line will be removed if it contains just a <nop>.

-- Peter Thoeny - 2020-10-17

Turns out the workaround did not work. Now trying other options like using SET/GET to save/retrieve the number of topics for each search. Then will insert a NOP only if the number of topics is 0. Will post when I have the results of the testing.

-- Bob Mellinger - 2020-10-19

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