There's a slight problem with the syntax, namely if you read select=tag:blog&select=tag:coment
quickly. the "&" sticks in the mind and it gets parsed as select=tag:blog&tag:coment that is as an intersection rather than a union. What I'm trying to say is I'm used to applying the boolean before the selection rather than after it and so a cursory glance is misread. I don't think I'm atypical in that respect. Martin 2009/4/29 [email protected] <[email protected]>: > > On Apr 29, 12:46 pm, Jeremy Ruston <[email protected]> wrote: >> I'd also given thought to the difference between selection and >> filtering. My simplistic way of fitting them together was to invent >> the idea of a implicit selector at the start of a filter list. Thus, a >> construction like "[tag[blog]sort[modified]limit[10]]" would be >> treated as "[select[*]tag[blog]sort[modified]limit[10]]". > > Yeah, that's perniciously hard to reliably parse for both a person (at > least this) and a computer, and it couples into the same engine three > very different pieces of functionality. That coupling is what you > might call anathema to the TiddlyWebWay™. > > As things currently stand filters in TiddlyWeb are though of as a > single query parameter on a URL (?filter=<the filter string>). Better > I think would be (at least) three: > > * select or filter for things like <fieldname>:<fieldspec (include > simple regular expressions)> > * sort > * limit or count (can't decide if this would be just a number of would > have some kind of spec to) > > Then you can parse the query string, and have specific bits of code > that select, sort or limit do what they do best, rather than a > monolith that is confusing. > > Set handling could be done as follows (I'm making this up as I go, so > please suggest something else if this seems wack): > > * Unions: use multiple select query paramters, each parameter does > another select on the full set of tiddlers are the collection being > filtered/selected from: eg select=tag:blog&select=tag:coment gets all > tiddlers tagged blog plus all tiddlers tagged comment. > * Intersections: multiple selection statements in one select paramter: > select=tag:blog%20tag:comment gets only those tiddlers that are tagged > both tag and comment. > > (One reason I like this idea is that I find it easy to imagine the > solution: it is still based on generating functions from parsing the > query string: tag:blog leads to a particular function, whether it is > doing an intersection or union is based on which set of tiddlers are > fed to it.) > > Obviously someone can come up with some case that this syntax will not > satisfy but we can do that all day and night, with any syntax. No > syntax will be perfect. Sometimes you just have to say, "you can't do > that with this, you'll need to do your own thing." > > Some of the shortcomings in this syntax can be overcome by having the > same bag listed in one recipe multiple times and filtering the output > of the entire recipe (this is already the common way to create a > recent changes syndication feed). > > Comments? > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWikiDev" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWikiDev?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
