["property"] search

[gino_m]

Just updated to 1.4.14.
Didn’t really try searching for properties much before, so no idea how recent this issue is.

Searching for: ["topic"]

Results include:
topic: foo bar
parent_topic: fuu bar
child_topic: fuu baz
topic_alternative: fuuu baz

• These come from my use of the Linked Data Vocabularies plugin, if anyone’s interested.

Is this intended? This no way should be intended. Only topic should be found, if the search syntax includes the double quotes.

This is why I use regex instead (always; like so: /searchterm/). Also when searching for regular terms like "Turkish delight" as Turkish delights are not found (which I hear is normal on MacOS Finder as well).

[gino_m]

Bumping this: Bug or no bug?

[CawlinTeffid]

Please don’t bump posts — especially after only half a day.

[CawlinTeffid]

I don’t see anything in Search - Obsidian Help that specifies that quoting a word excludes words that include the word. It appears to be intended for phrases.

[gino_m]

Yes, I should have written it up straight away and I did:

Unexpected Superfluous Search Results (due to whole word matching of properties)

Obsidian Version: 1.4.14 Platform: [Any] Description: I have recently updated to Obsidian version 1.4.14 and encountered an unexpected behavior while performing Properties searches with the built-in format (square brackets + double quotes). Prior to this update, I did not actively use the search feature, so I cannot confirm when this issue might have arisen. Steps to Reproduce: Open Obsidian version 1.4.14. In the search bar, enter the following query or pick one of your properties from the pa…

Right now this search function is not a Properties search function. It is a search that can handle searching for properties, giving one the syntax on how to do it.
But if I want to search for a property, I should have search results for that property alone, because I no longer am searching for just any text in my vault. Which means the search modal must give Property-specific results not text-specific (meaning any text) results.
With Properties, Obsidian has moved toward organizing/standardizing YAML keys, but the search is pure text search, giving incorrect results.

[andrezgz]

@gino_m

Right now this search function is not a Properties search function. It is a search that can handle searching for properties, giving one the syntax on how to do it.

My thoughts exactly. Global search was working just fine before adding Properties. It came with bugs like:

Can no longer search for full URLs that start with https:

Steps to reproduce Search for a full URL that starts with https://, e.g. https://www.google.com Enable “Explain search terms” Now it says “Operator ‘https’ not recognized” Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N] Yes Expected result Expected to see a result for the search query. This was how it worked before the latest update. Actual result Environment SYSTEM INFO: Obsidian version: v1.4.5 Installer version: v1.2.8 Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 22.6.0: Wed Jul 5 22:…

Escaping square brackets in global search is not working

Even though it is mentioned in Support escaping colon `:` in global search `\:` that This is already supported for square brackets \[ \] . it doesn’t return any results: [image] It is searching for a property with the key "\" as explained. Delimiting the square brackets with quotation marks " is working: [image] Nevertheless, it feels awkward having to escape square brackets in search… as proposed with colons too.

Besides full-quoting a string, there is a feature request that proposes escaping certain symbols that didn’t have issues before properties.

Support escaping symbols used in the syntax of global search

The symbols used to form a query for the global search are not usable directly ()[]: OR. They are only usable when they are within a string, delimited by quotation marks " , example "(this)". Proposed solution Support escaping those symbol, example \(this\).

I think Properties should have an independent toggle in search to activate this whole new behavior with redefined interpretation for certain characters. When disabled, global search works as before.

[gino_m]

Suggestion: upgrade “properties” search to Properties search, meaning the syntax [""] would be reserved to refer to search for Properties per se (the double quotes limiting the first and last characters of the Property name) the same way tag:# is used to search for tags and tags alone.
Or, losing the quotes even: property:[].