Using the Endeca Query Language

This section describes how to use the Endeca Query Language, which allows you to create various types of record filters when making navigation queries for record search.

About the Endeca Query Language
The Endeca Query Language (EQL) contains a rich syntax that allows an application to build dynamic, complex filters that define arbitrary subsets of the total record set and restrict search and navigation results to those subsets.
Endeca Query Language syntax
The following EBNF grammar describes the syntax for EQL filter expressions.
Making Endeca Query Language requests
The collection() function is used to query the MDEX Engine for a set (that is, a collection) of Endeca records, based on an expression that defines the records you want.
Record Relationship Navigation queries
EQL allows you to issue a request against normalized records, using record-to-record relationship filter expressions. These types of requests are called Record Relationship Navigation (RRN) queries.
Dimension value queries
Dimension value queries allow you to filter records by dimension values. The dimension value used for filtering can be any dimension value in a flat dimension or in a dimension hierarchy.
Record search queries
The endeca:matches() function allows a user to perform a keyword search against specific properties or dimension values assigned to records. (Record search queries are also called text search queries.)
Range filter queries
The EQL range filter functionality allows a user, at request time, to specify either a literal value or a geocode value to limit the records returned for the query.
Dimension search queries
The Drs URL query parameter sets an EQL filter for a dimension search.
Endeca Query Language interaction with other features
Because EQL is a filtering language, it does not contain functionality to perform actions such as triggering Content Spotlighting, sorting, or relevance ranking.
Endeca Query Language per-query statistics log
The MDEX Engine can log information about the processing time of an EQL request.
Creating an Endeca Query Language pipeline
This section provides information on configuring the pipeline for an application that implements EQL.