Finding Objects by Name

To search for objects by name, you normally use a combination of find qualifiers and name patterns. Find qualifiers affect sorting and pattern matching. Name patterns specify the strings to be searched. The BusinessQueryManagerImpl.findObjects method takes a collection of FindQualifier objects as its second argument and takes a collection of name patterns as its third argument. The method signature is as follows:

public BulkResponse findObjects(java.lang.String objectType,
        java.util.Collection findQualifiers,
        java.util.Collection namePatterns,
        java.util.Collection classifications,
        java.util.Collection specifications,
        java.util.Collection externalIdentifiers,
        java.util.Collection externalLinks)
    throws JAXRException

For the first argument, the object type, you normally specify one of a set of string constants that are defined in the LifeCycleManager interface.

You can use wildcards in a name pattern. Use percent signs (%) to specify that the search string occurs at the beginning, middle, or end of the object name. Here are some examples:

• Specify nor% to return strings that start with Nor or nor, such as North and northern.

• Specify %off% to return strings that contain the string off, such as Coffee.

• Specify %ica to return strings that end with ica, such as America.

You can also use an underscore (_) as a wildcard to match a single character. For example, the search string _us_ would match objects named Aus1 and Bus3.

For example, the following code fragment finds all the organizations in the Registry whose names begin with a specified string, searchString, and sorts them in alphabetical order.

// Define find qualifiers and name patterns
Collection findQualifiers = new ArrayList();
findQualifiers.add(FindQualifier.SORT_BY_NAME_ASC);
Collection namePatterns = new ArrayList();
namePatterns.add(searchString + "%");

// Find organizations with name that starts with searchString
BulkResponse response =
     bqm.findObjects("Organization", findQualifiers,
         namePatterns, null, null, null, null);
Collection orgs = response.getCollection();

The findObjects method is not case-sensitive, unless you specify FindQualifier.CASE_SENSITIVE_MATCH. In the previous fragment, the first argument could be either "Organization" or "organization", and the name pattern matches names regardless of case.

The following code fragment performs a case-sensitive search for all registry objects whose names contain the string searchString and sorts the objects in alphabetical order.

Collection findQualifiers = new ArrayList();
findQualifiers.add(FindQualifier.CASE_SENSITIVE_MATCH);
findQualifiers.add(FindQualifier.SORT_BY_NAME_ASC);
Collection namePatterns = new ArrayList();
namePatterns.add("%" + searchString + "%");

// Find objects with name that contains searchString
BulkResponse response =
     bqm.findObjects("RegistryObject", findQualifiers,
         namePatterns, null, null, null, null);
Collection orgs = response.getCollection();

The percent sign matches any number of characters in the name. To match a single character, use the underscore (_). For example, to match both “Arg1” and “Org2” you would specify a name pattern of _rg_.

Finding Objects by Name: Example

For an example of finding objects by name, see JAXRSearchByName.java in the directory <INSTALL>/registry/samples/search-name/src.

To Run the JAXRSearchByName Example

Steps

1. Go to the directory <INSTALL>/registry/samples/search-name.

2. Type the following command, specifying a string value:

   asant run -Dname=string

   The program performs a case-insensitive search, returning all objects whose names contain the specified string. The program also displays the object’s classifications, external identifiers, external links, slots, and audit trail.