TWiki Variables » Search » Category: Searching & Listing

CHILDREN -- find children of a topic

• Find direct children of a topic, as defined by the parent-child relationship between topics.
• To find children recursively (topic tree) use the TWiki:Plugins.TreePlugin (not yet installed).
• Syntax: %CHILDREN{...}%
• Supported parameters:

  Parameter:	Description:	Default:
  web="%WEB%"	Wiki web.	Current web
  topic="%TOPIC%"	The topic to find the children.	Current topic
  format="..."	Custom format for each topic found. Supports same format strings as SEARCH. See FormattedSearch for usage, variables & examples	"$topic"
  separator="..."	Separator between topics.	", "
  default="none"	Default text shown if no children found.	"" (empty)

• Example: %CHILDREN{ topic="%TOPIC%" }%
• Category: SearchingAndListingVariables, SystemInformationVariables
• Related: META, PARENTTOPIC, METASEARCH, SEARCH (this topic)

META -- displays meta-data

• Provided mainly for use in templates, this variable generates the parts of the topic view that relate to meta-data (attachments, forms etc.) The formfield item is the most likely to be useful to casual users.
• Syntax: %META{ "item" ...}%
• Parameters:

  Item	Options	Description
  "attachments"	all="on" to show hidden attachments. title="..." to show a title - only if attachments are displayed. template="..." to use a custom template for the rendering of attachments; default attachtables is used. topic="...": Get meta info of "Topic" or "Web.Topic"; default "%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%".	Generates the list of attachments
  "parent"	dontrecurse="on": By default recurses up tree, this has some cost. nowebhome="on": Suppress WebHome. prefix="...": Prefix that goes before parents, but only if there are parents, default "". format="...": Format string used to display each parent topic where $web expands to the web name, and $topic expands to the topic name; default: "[[$web.$topic][$topic]]" suffix="...": Suffix, only appears if there are parents; default "". separator="...": Separator between parents; default " > ". topic="...": Get meta info of "Topic" or "Web.Topic"; default "%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%".	Generates the parent link
  "formfield"	name="...": name of the field. The field value can be shortened as described in FormattedSearch for $formfield. newline="...": by default, each newline character will be rewritten to <br /> to allow metadata that contains newlines to be used in tables, etc. $n indicates a newline character. bar="...": by default, each vertical bar is rewritten to an HTML entity so as to not be mistaken for a table separator. encode="type": have the value encoded in the specified type. Possible types are the same as ENCODE's. If this is specified, newline and bar options are ignored. topic="...": Get meta info of "Topic" or "Web.Topic"; default "%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%".	Show a single form field
  "form"	topic="...": Get meta info of "Topic" or "Web.Topic"; default "%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%".	Generates the table showing the form fields. See Form Templates
  "moved"	topic="...": Get meta info of "Topic" or "Web.Topic"; default "%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC%".	Details of any topic moves

• Attention: The base topic, not the current topic, is used if %META{}% is placed in an included topic. Add a topic="%WEB%.%TOPIC%" parameter if you need meta info of the current topic.
• Note: Formatting tokens can be used for newline, prefix, format, suffix and separator options, such as separator="$n   * "
• Category: AttachmentsAndFilesVariables, SearchingAndListingVariables, SystemInformationVariables
• Related: EDITFORM, EDITFORMFIELD, FORM, FORMFIELD, METASEARCH, PARENTTOPIC, SEARCH, ENCODE, FormattedSearch (this topic)

METASEARCH -- special search of meta data

• Syntax: %METASEARCH{...}%
• Supported parameters:

  Parameter:	Description:	Default:
  type="..."	Type of search: • "topicmoved" - search for a topic that may have been moved. • "parent" - search for topics that have a specific parent i.e. its children. • "field" - search for topics that have a particular form field value (use the name and value parameters to specify which field to search).	Required
  web="%WEB%"	Wiki web to search: A web, a list of webs separated by whitespace, or all webs.	Current web
  topic="%TOPIC%"	The topic the search relates to.	Current topic
  name="..."	form field to search, for type="field" searches. May be a regular expression (see SEARCH).
  value="..."	form field value, for type="field" searches. May be a regular expression (see SEARCH).
  title="Title"	Text that is prefixed to any search results.	"" (empty)
  format="..."	Custom format of each search hit. Supports same format strings as SEARCH. See FormattedSearch for usage, variables & examples	"$topic"
  separator="..."	Separator between search hits.	"$n" (newline)
  default="none"	Default text shown if no search hit.	"" (empty)

• Example: %METASEARCH{type="topicmoved" web="%WEB%" topic="%TOPIC%" title="This topic used to exist and was moved to: "}%
• Example: You may want to use this in WebTopicViewTemplate and WebTopicNonWikiTemplate:
  %METASEARCH{type="parent" web="%WEB%" topic="%TOPIC%" title="Children: "}%
• Example: %METASEARCH{type="field" name="Country" value="China"}%
• Note: METASEARCH is deprecated in favor of the much more powerful query type search. See SEARCH and QuerySearch.
• Category: SearchingAndListingVariables, SystemInformationVariables
• Related: CHILDREN, EDITFORM, EDITFORMFIELD, FORM, FORMFIELD, META, PARENTTOPIC, SEARCH (this topic)

SEARCH{"text"} -- search content

• Inline search, shows a search result embedded in a topic
• Syntax: %SEARCH{"text" ...}%
• Supported parameters:

  Parameter:	Description:	Default:
  "text"	Search term. Is a keyword search, literal search, regular expression search, or query, depending on the type parameter. SearchHelp has more	required
  search="text"	(Alternative to above)	N/A
  web="Name" web="Main, Know" web="all"	Comma-separated list of webs to search. You can specifically \*exclude\* webs from an all search using a minus sign - for example, web="all,-Secretweb". The special word all means all webs that do not have the NOSEARCHALL variable set to on in their WebPreferences. Note that TWikiAccessControls are respected when searching webs; it is much better to use them than NOSEARCHALL.	Current web
  topic="WebPreferences" topic="*Bug"	Limit search to topics: A topic, a topic with asterisk wildcards, or a list of topics separated by comma. Note this is a list of topic names and must not include web names.	All topics in a web
  excludetopic="Web*" excludetopic="WebHome, WebChanges"	Exclude topics from search: A topic, a topic with asterisk wildcards, or a list of topics separated by comma. Note this is a list of topic names and must not include web names.	None
  scope="topic" scope="text" scope="all"	Search topic name (title); the text (body) of topic; or all (title and body)	"text"
  type="keyword" type="word" type="literal" type="regex" type="query"	Control how the search is performed when scope="text" or scope="all" keyword: use Google-like controls as in soap "web service" -shampoo; searches word parts: using the example, topics with "soapsuds" will be found as well, but topics with "shampoos" will be excluded word: identical to keyword but searches whole words: topics with "soapsuds" will not be found, and topics with "shampoos" will not be excluded literal: search for the exact string, like web service regex: use a RegularExpression search like soap;web service;!shampoo; to search on whole words use \bsoap\b query: query search of form fields and other meta-data, like (Firstname='Emma' OR Firstname='John') AND Lastname='Peel'	%SEARCHVAR- DEFAULTTYPE% preferences setting (literal)
  sort="topic" sort="created" sort="modified" sort="editby" sort="parent" sort="parent(99)" sort="formfield(name)" sort="parent,  formfield(name)"	Sort the search results by: • topic: topic name, • created: topic creation time, • modified: last modified time, • editby: last editor, • parent: parent topic name, • parent(N): parent breadcrumb up to indicated level, • formfield(NAME): named TWikiForms field, • or a combination to sort by more than one field using a comma list. The sorting is done web by web; if you want to sort across webs, create a formatted table and sort it with TablePlugin's initsort. Note that dates are sorted most recent date last (i.e at the bottom of the table). Legacy order parameter is used in case sort is not specified.	"topic"
  reverse="on" reverse="off, on"	Reverse the direction of the search. Specify a comma list of on, off tokens to toggle direction by sort field. If sort has more fields than reverse tokens, the state of the last reverse token is taken for the remaining fields.	"off"
  start="0" start="20"	Specify the number of results to skip. This is done after sorting if sort parameter is specified. This is intended for pagination of results. If this parameter is specified, %NTOPICS% in the search template is replaced with the number of topics matched. Without this parameter, %NTOPICS% doesn't exceed the limit value.	"0"
  limit="all" limit="16"	Limit the number of results returned. This is done after sorting if sort parameter is specified. This parameter specifing the number of results remains the same in the presense of the start parameter. Assuming there are more than 20 results matched, start="10" limit="10" results in 11th to 20th results are returned	"all"
  date="..."	limits the results to those pages with latest edit time in the given time interval.	All results
  createdate="..."	similar to date but it's about create time instead of last edit. You can specify both date and createdate, in which case topics matching both conditions are shown.	All results
  casesensitive="on"	Case sensitive search	Ignore case
  bookview="on"	BookView search, e.g. show complete topic text	Show topic summary
  nonoise="on"	Shorthand for nosummary="on" nosearch="on" nototal="on" zeroresults="off" noheader="on" noempty="on"	Off
  nosummary="on"	Show topic title only	Show topic summary
  nosearch="on"	Suppress search string	Show search string
  noheader="on"	Suppress default search header Topics: Changed: By: , unless a header is explicitly specified	Show default search header, unless search is inline and a format is specified (Cairo compatibility)
  nototal="on"	Do not show number of topics found	Show number
  zeroresults="off"	Suppress all output if there are no hits	zeroresults="on", displays: "Number of topics: 0"
  noempty="on"	Suppress results for webs that have no hits.	Show webs with no hits
  headingoffset="2"	Adjust the level of headings in text of topics found, taking effect in $text and $pattern() of a FormattedSearch. A "2" or "+2" increases the level by two, e.g. a ---+ H1 turns into a ---+++ H3. Positive and negative values are supported. Adjusted min and max levels are H1 and H6, respectively.	no adjustment
  header="..." format="..." footer="..."	Custom format results. See FormattedSearch for usage, variables & examples	Results in table
  default="..."	Default message if there are no hits in a web. See FormattedSearch for usage, variables & examples	No output
  expandvariables="on"	Expand variables before applying a FormattedSearch on a search hit. Useful to show the expanded text, e.g. to show the result of a SpreadSheetPlugin %CALC{}% instead of the formula	Raw text
  multiple="on"	Multiple hits per topic. Each hit can be formatted. The last token is used in case of a regular expression ";" and search	Only one hit per topic
  nofinalnewline="on"	If on, the search variable does not end in a line by itself. Any text continuing immediately after the search variable on the same line will be rendered as part of the table generated by the search, if appropriate.	off
  recurse="on"	Recurse into subwebs, if subwebs are enabled.	off
  separator=", "	Line separator between search hits. Specify format="$topic" separator=", " to get a comma separated list of topic names. The following variables can be used in the separator value: $n expands to a newline, $br expands to a <br /> line break tag.	"$n" (Newline)
  newline="$br"	Line separator within a search hit. Useful if you want to put multi-line content into a table cell, for example if the format="" parameter contains a $pattern() that captures more than one line, or contains a $formfield() that returns a multi-line textfield. The following variables can be used in the newline value: $n expands to a newline, $br expands to a <br /> line break tag.	"$n" (Newline)
  encode="html"	Encode special characters into HTML entities. If a FORMFIELD is passed into an HTML form field it should be encoded as "html". Additional encodings available: encode="quote", encode="moderate", encode="safe", encode="entity" and encode="url". See ENCODE for details.	no encoding

• Example: %SEARCH{"wiki" web="Main" scope="topic"}%
• Example with URLPARAM: %SEARCH{"%URLPARAM{"query" encode="search"}%" web="Main"}%
• Example with format: %SEARCH{"FAQ" scope="topic" nosearch="on" nototal="on" header="| *Topic: * | *Summary: * |" format="| $topic | $summary |"}% (displays results in a table with header - details)
• Hint: If the TWiki:Plugins.TablePlugin is installed, you may set a %TABLE{}% variable just before the %SEARCH{}% to alter the output of a search. Example: %TABLE{ tablewidth="90%" }%
• Category: DevelopmentVariables, DatabaseAndFormsVariables, ExportAndPublishingVariables, SearchingAndListingVariables
• Related: CHILDREN, EDITFORM, EDITFORMFIELD, FORM, FORMFIELD, META, METASEARCH, PARENTTOPIC, TOPICLIST, WEBLIST, FormattedSearch, SearchResultsPagination, QuerySearch, SearchHelp, SearchPatternCookbook, RegularExpression (this topic)

TOPICLIST{"format"} -- topic index of a web

• List of all topics in a web. The "format" defines the format of one topic item. It may include variables: The $topic variable gets expanded to the topic name, $marker to marker parameter where topic matches selection, and $web to the name of the web, or any of the standard FormatTokens.
• Syntax: %TOPICLIST{"format" ...}%
• Supported parameters:

  Parameter:	Description:	Default:
  "format"	Format of one line, may include $web (name of web), $topic (name of the topic), $marker (which expands to marker for the item matching selection only)	"$topic"
  format="format"	(Alternative to above)	"$topic"
  separator=", "	line separator	"$n" (new line)
  marker="selected"	Text for $marker if the item matches selection	"selected"
  selection="TopicA, TopicB"	Topic(s) to show selected with $marker; specify a comma-space list of full topic names	(none)
  web="Name"	Name of web	Current web

• Example: %TOPICLIST{"   * $web.$topic"}% creates a bullet list of all topics
• Example: %TOPICLIST{separator=", "}% creates a comma separated list of all topics
• Example: %TOPICLIST{" <option>$topic</option>"}% creates an option list (for drop down menus)
• Example: <select>%TOPICLIST{" <option $marker value='$topic'>$topic</option>" separator=" " selection="%TOPIC%"}%</select> creates an option list of web topics with the current topic selected
• Category: SearchingAndListingVariables, SystemInformationVariables
• Related: SEARCH, WEBLIST (this topic)

WEBLIST{"format"} -- index of all webs

• List of all webs. Obfusticated webs are excluded, e.g. webs with a NOSEARCHALL = on preference variable. The "format" defines the format of one web item. The $name variable gets expanded to the name of the web, $qname gets expanded to double quoted name, $marker to marker where web matches selection.
• Syntax: %WEBLIST{"format" ...}%
• Supported parameters:

  Parameter:	Description:	Default:
  "format"	Format of one line, may include following items. In addtion, the standard special tokens are handled accordingly. Item Description $name the name of the web $qname the name of the web in double quotes $indentedname the name of the web with parent web names replaced by indents, for use in indented lists $listindent expands to multiple-of-3 spaces for bullet (*) and numberd (1., a., etc.) lists. It's relative to the depth of the web specified by the subwebs parameter. See an example below. $marker expands to marker for the item matching selection only $web expands to the value specified by the web parameter If you need to have a letter immediately after an item listed above, use $nop(), one of FormatTokens. e.g. $name$nop()a	"$name"
  format="format"	(Alternative to above)	"$name"
  separator=", "	Line separator	"$n" (new line)
  web=""	if you specify $web in format, it will be replaced with this	""
  webs="public"	Comma separated list of webs. There are special webs: Item Description public expands to all non-hidden webs. cancopyto similar to public, but webs to which a topic of the current web cannot be copied to are excluded. Specifically, excluded are read-only webs and mirror webs. canmoveto similar to cancopyto, but webs to which a topic of the current web cannot be moved to are excluded. Specifically, excluded are webs residing on different disks from the current web. webtemplate expands to all template webs, whose name start with underscore (_) NOTE 1: Administrators will see all webs, not just the public ones. NOTE 2: If MetadataRepository is used and webs are required to be registered, then cancopyto, canmoveto, and webtemplate behave differently. cancopyto and canmoveto results include all top level webs and subwebs of the current webs are listed regardless of accessibility - subwebs of non-current webs are excluded. They also include the user's subweb. webtemplate result has top level template webs only.	"public"
  exclude="Legacy*, Sandbox"	Comma separated list of webs to exclude. Wildcards can be used, such as Legacy* to exclude all webs starting with Legacy.	""
  marker="selected"	Text for $marker if the item matches selection	"selected"
  selection="%WEB%"	Current value to be selected in list	selection="%WEB%"
  subwebs="Sandbox"	Show webs that are a sub-web of this one (recursivly)	""
  depth="1"	Specify the maximum depth of recursive search. E.g. %WEBLIST{depth="1"}% shows only top level webs. %WEBLIST{subwebs="Foo" depth="1"}% shows the direct subwebs of Foo.	(no maximum depth)
  limit="30"	Limit number of webs to show	"" (all)
  overlimit="..."	Message shown if over limit, such as: overlimit="   * [[%SYSTEMWEB%.SiteMap][More...]]"	""
  reverse="on"	Reverse the order of the result.	"" (off)

• Example: %WEBLIST{"$listindent   * [[$name.WebHome]]"}% - creates a indented bullet list of all webs.
• Example: <form><select name="web"> %WEBLIST{"<option $marker value=$qname>$name</option>" webs="Trash, public" selection="%WEB%" separator=" "}% </select></form> - creates a dropdown of all public webs + Trash web, with the current web highlighted.
• Category: SearchingAndListingVariables, SystemInformationVariables
• Related: TOPICLIST, SEARCH, MetadataRepository, ReadOnlyAndMirrorWebs, UsingMultipleDisks (this topic)

Total: 6 variables

Related Topics: TWikiVariables, TWikiVariablesSearch, TWikiVariablesQuickStart