Adding Two or more Search expressions into one - how?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Chris_Snow

Okay...I used this first

#r2ryesno:"true" and #yesnoread:"false" and #yesno:"true"

and it seems to return what I wanted. That is...the book is ready to read...I haven't read it...and yes, it's on my reading list. Great!

But with the expressions that were stated later in the thread I found they didn't work - eg

#r2ryesno:yes and #yesnoread:no and #yesno:yes

In fact, I haven't been able to get any of them to work using yes or no expressions.



Can someone explain how (or where?? ) I use these variables. You're right, they are easier to understand.

I've realised my original problem was that I wasn't using the "and" part of the expression, but I'd like to get this yes/no working if I can.

And...is NOT the expression for the blank space?

not #yesno:true would be UNASSIGNED or False if you have use tristate mode tweak set

{#yesno} is how any custom column is used in a template . Agreed, you would probably do more processing BASED upon the Logical value

[BetterRed]

@theducks and davidfor - syntaxes all of us, so I prefer to fill in the form - see attachment

Chris_Snow - hit the blue button in Prefs->Custom Column with the 'i' to change the names

the value of the blank in a three value yes/No column is 'empty' as in

not #in_reading_list:"empty" - i.e. then it must be Y or N
#in_reading_list:"empty" - i.e no value, blank, null

BR

[Chris_Snow]

Originally Posted by davidfor

In what way didn't it work? Did you see an error or didn't it show the books you expected? If the latter, are you sure there are books that match the condition? For this sort of thing, I usually build up the query one step at a time. That way I can check from a previous query if there are results that should be on the next.

So, I would start with "#r2ryesno:yes". Then change to "#r2ryesno:yes and #yesnoread:no" before going to the final query. If that didn't seem to work, I would try "#r2ryesno:yes and #yesno:yes" and look through the list for what should have matched the full query.



From memory, the only way to get the blank is with the "false" comparison. So, "#r2ryesno:false". Or, for the books that have not been assigned to any of the lists:

#r2ryesno:false and #yesnoread:false and #yesno:false

Okay...I didn't get an error, but calibre popped up a dialog box that said something like...
"The search found no books, so the calibre library will be empty. Do you really want to use that search?"
This is telling me that the expression isn't working. The first one I used (with true and false) seemingly returns the correct books.

I think trying them one at a time is a good pointer. I give it a go now.

[Chris_Snow]

Okay...seems I sussed out the problem...and as usual it was user error - doh!!!

It was the "Read" field that was causing the issue.I was using the

#yesnoread:no

expression when none of the books I haven't read are marked "no" - they just have a blank space.

So I used the

#yesnoread:false

and that returned as expected. This makes sense if false means a field unassigned (blank space)

Seems all the geek-speak got the neurons firing on my end!!

Really appreciate all the help. Thx very muchly. Lots of your pointers show me other areas of the program to start investigating.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by davidfor

From memory, the only way to get the blank is with the "false" comparison. So, "#r2ryesno:false". Or, for the books that have not been assigned to any of the lists:

#r2ryesno:false and #yesnoread:false and #yesno:false

Just for completeness ...

The empty value is usually referred to as "undefined".

There are several ways of searching for combinations of the three values normally found in yes/no columns, described in the manual. However, the text currently in the manual isn't quite correct. I have changed it to be:

Yes/no custom columns are searchable. Searching for ``false``, ``empty``, or ``blank`` will find all books with undefined values in the column. Searching for ``true`` will find all books that do not have undefined values in the column. Searching for ``yes`` or ``checked`` will find all books with ``Yes`` in the column. Searching for ``no`` or ``unchecked`` will find all books with ``No`` in the column. Note that the words ``yes``, ``no``, ``blank``, ``empty``, ``checked`` and ``unchecked`` are translated; you can use either the current language's equivalent word or the English word. The words ``true`` and ``false`` and the special values ``_yes``, ``_no``, and ``_empty`` are not translated.

The changes were to note that the English words are always available and that the special value "_empty" exists.