[Wasabi Proposal] End user search language

[Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen]

2007/1/29, Jean-Francois Dockes <jean-francois.dockes at wanadoo.fr>:
>
> Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen writes:
> > 2007/1/29, Jean-Francois Dockes <jean-francois.dockes at wanadoo.fr>:
> > >
> > > Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen writes:
> > > > Hi All,
> > > >
> > > > I put together a first take on formalizing an end user search
> language.
> > > >
> > > > http://wiki.freedesktop.org/wiki/WasabiUserSearchLanguage
> > >
> > > - Which of OR and AND has priority ? (does (A AND B OR C) mean
> > >    ((A AND B) OR C) or (A AND (B OR C)) ?
> >
> >
> > I guess it is standard that AND takes precedence over OR, but maybe it
> makes
> > sense to reverse that in our case. Think of the case
> > type:audio hendrix OR beatles
> >
> > In this case I would assume the user wants "audio files matching hendrix
> or
> > beatles", and not "audio files matching hendrix, or anything that
> matches
> > beatles"... I think it is non-standard however...


Thinking more about this operator precedence issue... What about

|| type:music jimi hendrix or beatles

If OR had precedence over AND that search would not yield the expected
results...

Maybe a solution would be to simple put selectors completely out of logical
scope with words and phrases. Always just AND them on to the expression.
That way the search:

|| type:music jimi hendrix or beatles filetype:mp3 or filetype:ogg

would give what is *probably* wanted...

A totally other approach would be to have AND take precedence and use "," to
separate expressions that should be ANDed together. Example:

|| type:music, jimi hendrix or beatles
|| type:music, jimi hendrix or beatles, filetype:mp3 or filetype:ogg

The last example translates to: (type:music) AND ((jimi AND hendrix) OR
beatles) AND (filetype:mp3 OR filetype:ogg)

I actually kinda like that. It keeps the conventional AND precedence and
allows simple grouping of expressions.

In our case, I think that you are right and that it makes more sense to
> have OR take precedence, this has my vote.


Are you still of the same opinion?

Cheers,
Mikkel
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xdg/attachments/20070129/dc3d45b7/attachment.htm