advanced multi stage queries using examine - Using Umbraco 7

Jason Espin 368 posts 1335 karma points

Apr 30, 2015 @ 15:53

Advanced multi-stage queries using Examine

Hi all,

We are having a lot of issues trying to build some Dynamic queries in Examine. We have a search form that contains the following fields;

public class TourFinderModel
{
    public string[] Trip_Type { get; set;}

    [DataType(DataType.Date)]
    public DateTime? Date_From { get; set;}

    [DataType(DataType.Date)]
    public DateTime? Date_To { get; set; }

    public string[] Trip_Duration { get; set; }

    public string[] Trip_Difficulty { get; set; }
}

TripType, TripDuration and Trip_Difficulty can be multi-select and must have at least one value.

We pass our model to a controller that ensures that the data format is correct based upon the current culture and if this is not the case then we default the datefrom to the current date and the dateto to a date that is 28 days in the future.

We then convert the TripType, TripDuration and Trip_Difficulty to CSV strings containing the search terms we need to process and pass these to our search page via TempData (see below):

   public class TourFinderController : SurfaceController
        {
            [HttpPost]
            public ActionResult Submit(TourFinderModel model)
            {
                IPublishedContent page = Umbraco.TypedContent(UmbracoContext.Current.PageId);
                IPublishedContent homepage = page.AncestorOrSelf(1);
                IPublishedContent search = homepage.Descendant("search");

                // Set the culture of the page the request came from
                CultureInfo ci = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo(page.GetCulture().ToString());

                // Ensure dateTime values have a value
                DateTime dateFrom = new DateTime();
                DateTime dateTo = new DateTime();

                if (DateTime.TryParse(model.Date_From.ToString(), ci, DateTimeStyles.None, out dateFrom))
                {
                    model.Date_From = dateFrom;
                }
                else
                {
                    model.Date_From = DateTime.Now;
                }

                if (DateTime.TryParse(model.Date_To.ToString(), ci, DateTimeStyles.None, out dateTo))
                {
                    model.Date_To = dateTo;
                }
                else
                {
                    model.Date_To = dateFrom.AddDays(28);
                }

                string csvType = string.Empty;
                string csvDuration = string.Empty;
                string csvDifficulty = string.Empty;

                csvType = string.Join(",", model.Trip_Type);
                csvDuration = string.Join(",", model.Trip_Duration);
                csvDifficulty = string.Join(",", model.Trip_Difficulty);

                // Validate the model
                if (!ModelState.IsValid)
                {
                    return CurrentUmbracoPage();
                }

                TempData["type"] = csvType;
                TempData["from"] = model.Date_From;
                TempData["to"] = model.Date_To;
                TempData["duration"] = csvDuration;
                TempData["difficulty"] = csvDifficulty;
                TempData["culture"] = ci;

                return RedirectToUmbracoPage(search);
            }
        }

It is on our search page that we process the search logic based upon the TempData values. As you can see we are trying to build our query dynamically so that we start with one of the criteria and use an Or to specify that for that criteria we are accepting multiple values. For the next value we do an and and then specify the field as well as the multiple values we accept. We then do the same for the last. The dates we leave our of Examine and process using Umbraco because of the way in which they are stored.

@inherits Umbraco.Web.Mvc.UmbracoTemplatePage
@using Examine.SearchCriteria
@using System.Globalization
@using System.Configuration
@{
    Layout = "Site.cshtml";

    /* Posted Data */
    string difficulty = TempData["difficulty"].ToString();
    string type = TempData["type"].ToString();
    string duration = TempData["duration"].ToString();
    string startDate = TempData["from"].ToString();
    string endDate = TempData["to"].ToString();

    Dictionary<string, List<string>> values = new Dictionary<string, List<string>>();


    if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(type))
    {
        List<string> csvList = type.Split(',').ToList();     
        values.Add("tripType", csvList);

    }
    if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(difficulty))
    {
        List<string> csvList = difficulty.Split(',').ToList();
        values.Add("tripDifficulty", csvList);
    }
    if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(duration))
    {
        List<string> csvList = duration.Split(',').ToList();
        values.Add("tripDuration", csvList);
    }

    DateTime dateFrom = new DateTime();
    DateTime dateTo = new DateTime();

    CultureInfo searchCulture = new CultureInfo(TempData["culture"].ToString());
    CultureInfo databaseCulture = new CultureInfo("en-GB");

    DateTime.TryParse(startDate, searchCulture, DateTimeStyles.None, out dateFrom);
    DateTime.TryParse(endDate, searchCulture, DateTimeStyles.None, out dateTo);

    List<string> dates = new List<string>();

    for (DateTime dt = dateFrom; dt <= dateTo; dt = dt.AddDays(1))
    {
        string date = dt.Date.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy", databaseCulture);
        dates.Add(date);
    }

    var searcher = Examine.ExamineManager.Instance.SearchProviderCollection["ToursSearcher"];
    var searchCriteria = searcher.CreateSearchCriteria(BooleanOperation.Or);

    IBooleanOperation query = null;

    if (values.Count() > 0)
    {        
        foreach (KeyValuePair<string, List<string>> entry in values)
        {
            if (query == null)
            {
                int count = 0;
                foreach (string value in entry.Value)
                {
                    if(count == 0){
                        query = searchCriteria.Field(entry.Key, value);
                    }else{
                        query = query.Or().Field(entry.Key, value);
                    }
                    count++;
                }
            }
            else
            {
                int count = 0;
                foreach (string value in entry.Value)
                {
                    if (count == 0)
                    {
                        query = query.And().Field(entry.Key, value);
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        query = query.Or().Field(entry.Key, value);
                    }
                    count++;
                }
            }
        }
    }

    List<dynamic> umbracoPages = new List<dynamic>();

    var searchResults = searcher.Search(query.Compile()).OrderByDescending(x => x.Score).TakeWhile(x => x.Score > 0.5f);
    if (searchResults.Count() > 0)
    {
        foreach (var item in searchResults)
        {
            IPublishedContent node = Umbraco.Content(item.Fields["id"]);
            if (node.GetCulture().ToString() == searchCulture.ToString())
            {
                List<string> departures = node.GetPropertyValue<string>("departureDate").Split(',').ToList();

                foreach (var date in dates)
                {
                    if (departures.Contains(date))
                    {
                        var anonObject = new { Difficulty = node.GetPropertyValue("tripDifficulty"), Name = node.Name, Date = date };
                        umbracoPages.Add(anonObject);
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}


<div class="row">

        Number of results : @umbracoPages.Count()


        <div id="search-results">
            Sort by: 
            <select>
                <option class="sort" data-sort="name">Name</option>
                <option class="sort" data-sort="date">Date</option>
            </select>
           <!--<button >
                Sort by name
            </button>
            <button class="sort" data-sort="date">
                Sort by date
            </button>
               --> 
            <div class="list col-md-12">

                @foreach (var page in umbracoPages)
                {
                    <div class="package col-md-8">

                            <span class="name">@page.Name</span><br/>
                            <span class="difficulty">@page.Difficulty</span><br />
                            <span class="date">@page.Date</span>
                    </div>

                }
            </div>

        </div>
</div>

The main issue we have is that our query is not returning any results when really it should.

We have selected three values for each of the string criteria knowing that one of the values of these three will definitely return a result but nothing is happening.

What we are aiming for is something like this in examine:

 if((Trip_Type == "valueA" || Trip_Type == "valueB" || Trip_Type == "valueC" ) && (Trip_Duration == "valueD" || Trip_Duration == "valueE" || Trip_Duration == "valueF" ) && (Trip_Difficulty == "valueG" || Trip_Difficulty == "valueH" || Trip_Difficulty == "valueI" ))

So in this case we could have results with:

Trip_Type = valueB
Trip_Duration = valueD
Trip_Difficulty = valueH

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

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Advanced multi-stage queries using Examine