Searching a table on different combinations of columns

Anvil Q&A
1

I am trying to search/filter a table in a datagrid using different combinations of say 4 fields or columns. With 4 fields there is about 15 different combinations I think.

I have programmed the search using ‘if’ statements and it works OK but if I want to add more search fields, the code becomes extensive to cover all the possible combinations. I used drop-downs with blank placeholder to represent that I do not want to filter on that particular field.

What is the best way of tackling this type of search to minimise coding and maximise the search power please?

2

Difficult to say for definite without seeing some code but one useful technique is to build a dict of search arguments and then pass that (unpacked) dict to the search function.

3

Thanks for your response - I have tried the example in the Anvil Docs:

kwargs = {'age': 42, 'employed': True}
filtered_table = app_tables.people.search(**kwargs)

This works as the fields are numeric and True/False which uses equals (=)

I need to search on text fields with q.like for partial and whole words e.g. ‘%’ + Name +‘%’. Any suggestions would be welcome.

1 Like
4

Then put those terms into your dict. Nothing to stop you putting q functions as values in there.

1 Like
5

Here is an example that could help: Search within search - #2 by stefano.menci

6

Hi Thank you - this works great!

7

Thanks for your help