XML syntax for file-based record filter expressions

The syntax for file-based record filter expressions closely mirrors the query level syntax, with some differences.

The file-based differences from the query-level syntax are:

In place of the AND, OR, NOT, and FILTER operators, the FILTER_AND, FILTER_OR, FILTER_NOT, and FILTER_NAME XML elements are used, respectively.
In place of the property and dimension value syntax used for query expressions, the PROP, DVAL_ID, and DVAL_PATH elements are used. Note that the DVAL_PATH element’s PATH attribute requires that paths for dimension values and property values be separated by colons, not forward slashes.
Instead of parentheses to enclose operand lists, normal XML element nesting (implicit in the locations of element start and end tags) is used.

The full DTD for XML file-based record filter expressions is provided in the filter.dtd file packaged with the Endeca software release.

Examples of file-based filter expressions

As an example, the following query-level expression:

OR(AND(Manufacturer:Sony,1001),
   AND(Manufacturer:Aiwa,NOT(1002)), Manufacturer:Denon)

is represented as a file-based expression using the following XML syntax:

<FILTER>
  <FILTER_OR>
    <FILTER_AND>
      <PROP NAME="Manufacturer"><PVAL>Sony</PVAL></PROP>
      <DVAL_ID ID="1001"/>
    </FILTER_AND>
    <FILTER_AND>
      <PROP NAME="Manufacturer"><PVAL>Aiwa</PVAL></PROP>
      <FILTER_NOT>
        <DVAL_ID ID="1002"/>
      </FILTER_NOT>
    </FILTER_AND>
    <PROP NAME="Manufacturer"><PVAL>Denon</PVAL></PROP>
  </FILTER_OR>
</FILTER>

Just as file-based expressions can be composed with query expressions, file expressions can also be composed within other file expressions. For example, the following query expression:

AND(FILTER(MyFilter),NOT(Manufacturer:Sony))

can be represented as a file-based expression using the following XML:

<FILTER>
  <FILTER_AND>
    <FILTER_NAME NAME="MyFilter"/>
    <FILTER_NOT>
       <PROP NAME="Manufacturer"><PVAL>Sony</PVAL></PROP>
    </FILTER_NOT>
  </FILTER_AND>
</FILTER>