Intro
Simple, semi-natural language query for filtering filing system objects.
The basic query is in the form of <field> <operator> “<meta data>”.
The quotes are required for all fields.
Queries can be bracketed.
Q1 & (Q2 | Q3) & ((Q4 & Q5) | Q6)
name beginsWith “Z” & (logSize < “1kb” | logSize > “1PB”) & ((created.hour = “12” & accessed.hour < “4”) | path contains “blob)
Fields
Describes the fields, the operators that work with the field and the metadata format.
Name
Filing system name of the object. This is not the display name as shown in the Finder (and other applications). And the extensions are visible.
Operators
beginsWith, endsWith, contains, dnc*, <, ≤, <=, =, is, !=, ≠, isn’t, >=, ≥, >
* does not contain
Metadata
Almost all characters the filing system can accept.
The string must be convertible to UTF-8 format (usually not a issue).
To enter a “ as part of the string, use \” . e.g. “quote\”blah”.
Entry text : name
name contains “axe”
name is “job”
Path
Full path of the object.
Symbolic links and aliases are not resolved.
Operators
beginsWith, endsWith, contains, dnc, <, ≤, <=, =, is, !=, ≠, isn’t, >=, ≥, >
Metadata
Almost all characters the filing system can accept.
The string must be convertible to UTF-8 format (usually not a issue).
To enter a “ as part of the string, use \” . e.g. “quote\”blah”.
Entry text : path
path contains “axe”
path is “job”
Type
What filing system type the object is.
Operators
=, is, !=, ≠
Metadata
One of the following: fifo, char, dir, directory, folder, block, symlink, symbolic, link, sym link, sock, socket, whiteout.
Entry text : type
type is “block”
Dates
There are five different date fields : created, content modifier, attribute modified, backuped & last accessed.
Each field can append a sub-component for more flexible filtering
- date : day, month, year.
- year.
- month : 1-12 or month name
- day : day of month (1-31) or week day name.
- time : hour, minute, second.
- hour : 0-23.
- minute : 0-59.
- second : 0-59.
Operators
<, ≤, <=, =, is, !=, ≠, isn’t, >=, ≥, >
Metadata
For all
- Y : year
- M : month
- D : day
- H : hour
- N : minute
- S : second
The following uses the creation date for informational purposes.
The information also applies to content modification, attribute modification, accessed and backuped.
Entry text is what you put into the query.
Replace 'created' with 'cntModified', 'attrModified', 'backuped' or 'accessed' when reading the entry text format for the other date fields.
Created
“YYYY/MM/DD.HH:NN:SS”, “DD/MM/YYYY.HH:NN:SS”
M, D, H, N, S can be one or two digits. Y must be four digits.
Entry text : created
Creation Date
“YYYY/MM/DD”, “DD/MM/YYYY”
M, D can be one or two digits. Y must be four digits.
Entry text : created.date
Creation Year
“YY”, “YYYY”
For YY, the value is added to 2000
Entry text : created.year
Creation Month
“mM”, “mMM”
The leading ‘m’ is required. Range is 1-12.
"jan", "january", "feb", "feburary", "mar", "march", "apr", "april", "may", "jun", "june", "jul", "july", "aug", "august", "sep", "september", "oct", "october", "nov", "november", "dec", "december"
Entry text : created.month
Creation Day
“dD”, “dDD”
The leading ‘d’ is required. Range is 1-31.
"sun", "sunday", "mon", "monday", "tue", "tuesday", "wed", "wednesday", "thu", "thursday", "fri", "friday", "sat", "saturday"
Entry text : created.day
Creation Time
“HH:MM:SS”
H, M, S can be one or two digits.
H range is 0-23. M range is 0-59. S range is 0-59.
Entry text : created.time
Creation Hour
“HH:”, “HH”, “midnight”, “midday”
H can be one or two digits.
Entry text : created.hour
Creation Minute
“:NN:”, “NN”
N can be one or two digits.
Entry text : created.minute
Creation Second
“:SS”, “SS”
S can be one or two digits.
Entry text : created.second
Owner ID
Owner ID of object.
Operators
<, ≤, <=, =, is, !=, ≠, isn’t, >=, ≥, >
Metadata
“XX”, “XXsfx”
X is any integer >= 0.
sfx is one of the following suffixes
- kb, mb, gb, tb, pb. Multiplies of 1000.
- kib, mib, gib, tib, pib. Multiples of 1024.
- byte
Entry text : ownerID
Group ID
Group ID of object.
See OwnerID above.
Entry text : groupID
File ID
FS ID of object
See OwnerID above.
Entry text : fileID
Parent ID
Parent directory ID of object
See OwnerID above.
Entry text : parentID
Logical Size
Logical size of object. Includes resource fork.
See OwnerID above.
Entry text : logSize
Physical Size
Physical size of object. Includes resource fork.
See OwnerID above.
Entry text : phySize
Valence
Number of items in directory.
Does not include ‘.’ & ‘..’.
Does include hidden objects.
See OwnerID above.
Entry: valence
Immediate Logical Size
Total logical size of all child components. Does not burrow into sub-directories.
See OwnerID above.
Entry text : immedLogSize
Immediate Physical Size
Total physical size of all child components. Does not burrow into sub-directories.
See OwnerID above.
Entry text : immedPhySize
Data
Actual data content of a file.
This is not yet implemented.
A query with this field will only search files, never any other filing system object.
Operators
These are all the operators:
- =, is
- !=, isn’t, ≠
- < , ≤ , <= , >= , >, ≥
- contains
- dnc (does not contain)
- beginsWith
- endsWith
| beginsWith | endsWith | contains dnc | < | <= ≤ | = is | != ≠ isn’t | >= ≥ | > |
| Name | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Path | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Type | — | — | — | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Dates | — | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Numeric Fields | — | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Data | — | — | ✓ | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | — |