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TiddlyWiki5/editions/tw5.com/tiddlers/filters/Introduction to Filters.tid

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created: 20140410101941871
modified: 20150221152006000
tags: Learning Filters
title: Introduction to filter notation
type: text/vnd.tiddlywiki
<<.preamble """This explains the basics of writing a [[filter|Filters]] to select a set of tiddlers. For a more technical presentation, see [[Filter Syntax]].""">>
<$macrocall $name=".note" _="""Filters do nothing if you just type them into a tiddler on their own. They need a context. An easy way to experiment with filters is to type them into the <<.advancedsearch-tab Filter>> tab of [[Advanced Search|$:/AdvancedSearch]]."""/>
The simplest case is where you already know exactly which tiddlers you want. Type each title in double square brackets, with a space between each one and the next:
```
[[Recipe book]] [[ScrambledEggs]] [[Mom's apple pie]]
```
You can omit the square brackets when a title doesn't contain any spaces:
```
[[Recipe book]] ScrambledEggs [[Mom's apple pie]]
```
The double square brackets are actually a shorthand for this:
```
[title[ScrambledEggs]]
```
... which gives us the <<.def "general model">> for any filter:
```
[operator[parameter]]
```
For instance, here's how to select all the tiddlers that have been tagged <<.tag Recipe>>:
```
[tag[Recipe]]
```
We can reverse the meaning by adding an exclamation mark `!` just before the operator. For example, we can select any tiddlers that do <<.em not>> have the <<.tag Recipe>> tag:
```
[!tag[Recipe]]
```
Tiddlers can be filtered by other fields than just title and tags:
```
[field:serving[4]]
```
That example will select any tiddlers that have <<.value 4>> in their <<.field serving>> field.
As the word "serving" isn't a standard filter operator (and isn't likely to become one), you can safely omit the `field:` prefix:
```
[serving[4]]
```
!Combinations
The filters we've looked at so far have involved just one step each. But you can <<.def run>> several steps together like this:
```
[tag[Vegetarian]!tag[soup]serving[4]]
```
Notice how the entire run is contained in a single pair of square brackets.
A tiddler has to match <<.em all>> of the steps in a run. So the example above retrieves vegetarian recipes (other than soups) for 4 people.
A sequence of separate runs will select the tiddlers that match <<.em any>> of the runs. We can use this to find recipes that serve either 3, 4 or 5 people:
```
[serving[3]] [serving[4]] [serving[5]]
```
If we want to ignore vegetarian recipes that serve 4, we can say this:
```
[serving[3]] [serving[4]!tag[Vegetarian]] [serving[5]]
```
By default, each run considers every tiddler in the wiki. But we can use a `+` sign to force a run to consider only the tiddlers that were selected by the preceding runs:
```
[serving[3]] [serving[4]] [serving[5]] +[tag[Vegetarian]] +[sort[title]]
```
This selects recipes for 3, 4 or 5 people, then filters <<.em those>> to remove the vegetarian ones, and finally sorts any that are left into alphabetical order of title.
In a similar way, we can use a `-` sign to <<.em remove>> a run's tiddlers from the result so far. Here we select all vegetarian recipes apart from two:
```
[tag[Vegetarian]] -[title[ScrambledEggs]] -BeansOnToast
```
!Special parameters
The parameter of each step we've seen so far has been in square brackets, meaning that ~TiddlyWiki treats it literally. But two other kinds of bracket are possible:
<<.def "Curly brackets">> `{}` mean that the parameter is a TextReference, and that its value is to be looked up in a specified tiddler. For example, if we have a tiddler called <<.tid Preference>> whose text happens to be the word <<.value Vegetarian>>, we can say
```
[tag{Preference}]
```
as an alternative to `[tag[Vegetarian]]`. This allows the preference to change over time.
<<.def "Angle brackets">> `<>` mean that the parameter is the name of a [[variable|Variables]] whose value is to be used instead. Here we use the built-in <<.vlink currentTiddler>> variable in a filter that selects any tiddlers whose text contains the title of the current one:
```
[search<currentTiddler>]
```