Searching in the data

Search for records	Query	Example (based on ods-api-monitoring dataset)
containing a value	value	explore returns every record containing the string explore
containing a value in a specific field	id_field:value	action:explore returns every record containing the string explore in the column named action
containing several values	value1 AND value2	explore AND search returns every record containing both explore and search
containing at least one of the values	value1 OR value2	action OR explore returns every record containing either explore or search
not containing a value	NOT value	NOT anonymous returns every record which does not contain the string anonymous
containing an exact value in a field	#exact(id_field,”value”)	#exact(user_id,"anonymous") returns every record containing the exact string anonymous in the column named user_id
if a field is empty	#null(id_field)	#null(referer) returns every record which has no value in the column named referer
where a date’s field is anterior to a value	id_date_field<=YYYY/MM/DD	timestamp<=2016/09 returns every record with a timestamp prior and equal to September 2016
where a date’s field is the current date minus a period	id_date_field>#now(days=-value)	timestamp>#now(days=-7) returns every record with a timestamp equal to current day minus 7 days
containing a geo field located in a specific area	#distance(“latitude,longitude”,distance)	#distance(48.866667,2.333333,1000) returns every record located at 1 km from the center of Paris

Query Language and Geo Filtering

Query language

The OpenDataSoft query language makes it possible to express complex boolean conditions as a filtering context.

Full-text search

The query language accepts full text queries.

If a given word or compounds is surrounded with double quotes, only exact matches are returned (modulo an accent and case insensitive match).

• film returns results that contain film, films, filmography...
• "film" only returns the ones containing exactly film.

Boolean expressions

The query language supports the following boolean operators AND, OR and NOT.

Parenthesis can be used to group together expressions and alter the default priority model:

• NOT
• AND
• OR

Samples

• film OR trees
• (film OR trees) AND paris

Field queries

One of the major feature of the query language is to allow per field filtering. You can use field names as a prefix to your queries to filter the results based on a specific field’s value.

For dataset search in the catalog, the list of available fields corresponds exactly to available metadata. By default:

Field Name	Description
publisher	The dataset publisher
title	The dataset title
description	The dataset description
license	The dataset license
records_count	The number of records in the dataset
modified	The last modification date of the dataset
language	The language of the dataset (iso code)
theme	The theme of the dataset
references	The references for the dataset

The domain administrator might define a richer metadata template, thus giving acces to a richer set of filtering fields.

For record search in a dataset, the list of available fields depend on the schema of the dataset. To fetch the list of available fields for a given dataset, you may use the search dataset or lookup dataset APIs.

Multiple operator fields can be used between the field name and the query:

• :, -, ==: Return results whose field exactly matches the given value (granted the fields are of text or numeric type)
• >, <, >=, <=: Return results whose field values are larger, smaller, larger or equal, smaller or equal to the given value (granted the field is of date or numeric type).
• [start_date TO end_date]: Queries Records whose date is between start_date and end_date.

Date formats can be specified in different formats: simple (YYYY[[/mm]/dd]) or ISO 8601 (YYYY-mm-DDTHH:MM:SS)

Examples:

• film_date >= 2002
• film_date >= 2013/02/11
• film_date: [1950 TO 2000]
• film_box_office > 10000 AND film_date < 1965

Query language functions

Advanced functions can be used in the query language. Function names need to be prefixed with a sharp (#) sign.

Function name	Description
now	Returns the current date. This function may be called as a query value for a field. When called without an argument, it will evaluate to the current datetime: birthdate >= #now() returns all Records containing a birth date greater or equal to the current datetime. This function can also accept parameters, see below for the #now function available parameters.
null	This function may be called specifying a field name as a parameter. It returns the hits for which no value is defined for the specified field. For example #null(birthdate)
exact	This function makes it possible to search for records with a field exactly matching a given value. For example, #exact(firstname, "Marie") will return records with a field firstname containing exactly “Marie” and nothing else.
attr	This function makes it possible to search for records with a field matching a value in the querying user’s SAML attributes. For example, #attr(firstname, user_first_name), performed by a user who has a SAML attribute user_first_name with a value of “Marie”, will return records with a field firstname containing “Marie”.

Available parameters for the ``#now`` function:

• years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, microseconds: These parameters add time to the current date.

  For example: #now(years=-1, hours=-1) returns the current date minus a year and an hour

• year, month, day, hour, minute, second, microsecond: can also be used to specify an absolute date.

  For example: #now(year=2001) returns the current time, day and month for year 2001

• weekday: Specifies a day of the week. This parameter accepts either an integer between 0 and 6 (where 0 is Monday and 6 is Sunday) or the first two letters of the day (in English) followed by the cardinal of the first week on which to start the query.

  #now(weeks=-2, weekday=1) returns the Tuesday before last.

  #now(weekday=MO(2)) returns Monday after next.

Geo Filtering

Records search accept geofilter parameters to filter in records which are located in a specific geographical area.

The following parameters may be used.

Parameter Name	Description
geofilter.distance	Limits the result set to a geographical area defined by a circle (coordinates of the center of the circle expressed in WGS84 and distance expressed in meters): latitude,longitude,distance: geofilter.distance=48.8520930694,2.34738897685,1000
geofilter.polygon	Limits the result set to a geographical area defined by a polygon (coordinates of the points expressed in WGS84 as in ((lat1,lon1),(lat2,lon2),(lat3,lon3)): geofilter.polygon=(48.883086,2.379072),(48.879022,2.379930),(48.883651,2.386968)