Umb 10.6.1 I have a search page which works fine for strings but I need to search for a date. The date comes as a string formatted yyyy-MM-dd. When I search for say 1965-05-02 I seem to get all records where the date has any of the numbers in it. I was just wondering how it's stored in the Examine Indexes. In the Settings section, if I do a search, I can see dates are shown as 02/05/1965 00:00:00 but I don't know if that's as a string or a DateTime object. Is it just a case of rearranging my incoming date string to match the Examine Index string or do I need to convert the incoming string to a DateTime object and search with that? Thanks.

It uses Ticks quick example

csharp
            var today = DateTime.Now;
            long min = today.Ticks;
            long max = today.Ticks;
            query ??= "7d";

            switch (query)
            {
                case "30m" :
                    min = today.AddMinutes(-30).Ticks;
                    break;
                case "60m" :
                    min = today.AddHours(-1).Ticks;
                    break;
                case "1d" :
                    min = today.AddDays(-1).Ticks;
                    break;
                case "7d" :
                    min = today.AddDays(-7).Ticks;
                    break;
                case "1m" :
                    min = today.AddMonths(-1).Ticks;
                    break;
                case "1y" :
                    min = today.AddYears(-1).Ticks;
                    break;
            }

            int pageIndex = page - 1;
            if(pageIndex < 0) {pageIndex = 0;}
            int pageSize = CurrentPage.Value<int>("intPageSize");

            if (_examineManager.TryGetIndex("ForumIndex", out var index))
            {
                
                var searcher = index.Searcher;

                var examineQuery = searcher.CreateQuery(IndexTypes.Content)
                .Field("postType", "Topic")
                    .And().RangeQuery<long>(new string[] { "updated" }, min, max)
                    .OrderByDescending(new SortableField[] { new SortableField("updateDate") });
                
                results = examineQuery.Execute();
            }

Ah right. So I'll have to convert my Date string to a DateTime object to get the ticks and compare on that. Thanks 🙂 That explains why I currently get what I get, lol

I think the field query doesn't add the double quotes around your search string. If I remember correctly, you'd have to do something like

"05/06/1934".Explicit()

to actually search for the whole string, rather than the individual components.

The date can only be part of the query so don't want the whole thing to be "Explicit". I don't get an "Explicit" available anyway, either on the Add or the Execute.

I'd be looking v closely at Callum's Umbraco search extensions package, which will smooth over these sorts of Examine issues. From memory, it will help with dates by indexing as easily searchable values, to avoid gymnastics in your queries.

As there's only up to 3 parameters I was trying to do it as a lamba query for children but couldn't get that syntax right either. I thought Examine might be better, lol

I think that is why I ended up using ticks as couldn't get the filter to work, mine is a custom index though, so will check what I did when I'm back home (I may me adding to the index as long not date)

Reverted to foreach loops around the collection of pages with the dates in, which worked for individual dates, but not good for combinations, i.e. any combination of Name1, Name2, Date1, Date2. So still struggling 😦 If only Examine/Lucine respected dates.

Index the date as ticks (search extensions package will do this for you) and this is straightforward.

Installed https://github.com/callumbwhyte/umbraco-search-extensions and rebuilt indexes. Still says the DOB field (which is from a date picker) is FullTextType 😦 The package only states that createDate and updateDate are converted to Date values. I suspect I'll have to do some composing to get the DOB field into the index as a separate field and as a Date, so not that straightforward, unless I've missed something?

think it's your field definition that's wrong.. the magicstring is

"datetime"

though I'd use..

options.FieldDefinitions.AddOrUpdate(new FieldDefinition("deceasedDateOfBirth", FieldDefinitionTypes.DateTime));

from the examine namespace to avoid

I was just following the example given in the package repo, but I'll give it a go, thanks.

iteresting that the repo uses "date" I wonder if it's beacuse createDate is already a "datetime" in the core, so that's just ignored, as an unknown fieldtype? https://github.com/umbraco/Umbraco-CMS/blob/contrib/src/Umbraco.Infrastructure/Examine/UmbracoFieldDefinitionCollection.cs#L22

Doesn't make any difference. I also can't hit the breakpoint indicated below. Which might indicate why it's not working but I'm not sure when this would kick in. If it's on site startup then I'm not sure it's possible to switch into debug so soon anyway.

public class ConfigureIndexOptions : IConfigureNamedOptions<LuceneDirectoryIndexOptions>
{
    private readonly IPublishedSnapshotAccessor _publishedSnapshotAccessor;

    public ConfigureIndexOptions(IPublishedSnapshotAccessor publishedSnapshotAccessor) {
        _publishedSnapshotAccessor = publishedSnapshotAccessor;
    }
    
    public void Configure(string name, LuceneDirectoryIndexOptions options)
    {
        if (name == "ExternalIndex")  //Breakpoint here not hit
        {
            var deceasedDateOfBirth = MemorialPage.GetModelPropertyType(_publishedSnapshotAccessor, x => x.DeceasedDateOfBirth)!.Alias;
            var deceasedDateOfDeath = MemorialPage.GetModelPropertyType(_publishedSnapshotAccessor, x => x.DeceasedDateOfDeath)!.Alias;
            options.FieldDefinitions.AddOrUpdate(new FieldDefinition(deceasedDateOfBirth, FieldDefinitionTypes.DateTime));
            options.FieldDefinitions.AddOrUpdate(new FieldDefinition(deceasedDateOfDeath, FieldDefinitionTypes.DateTime));
        }
    }

    public void Configure(LuceneDirectoryIndexOptions options) {
        throw new NotImplementedException();
    }
}

are you composing, or injecting in startup.cs?

services.AddTransient(); In startup.cs

not sure.. but you aren't adding a service..

?

services.AddTransient<ConfigureIndexOptions>();

which this is doing.

I'll try the composer then.

Ooooh, now I get !Unhandled exception.

System.InvalidOperationException: Wasn't possible to a get a valid Snapshot
   at Umbraco.Extensions.PublishedSnapshotAccessorExtensions.GetRequiredPublishedSnapshot(IPublishedSnapshotAccessor publishedSnapshotAccessor)

on start up

if you did want it in startup.cs,, think you need to extend the umbracoBuilder like this.. https://docs.umbraco.com/umbraco-cms/reference/routing/request-pipeline/icontentfinder#adding-and-removing-icontentfinders

I'm not fussed, I just want it to work, lol

For me I find using composers where ever possible (and in a separate code library) means when I update umbraco I can just leave startup.cs alone and compare to the new version startup.cs (as in place upgrade never touches startup.cs).. also stops the crap forgot to add in startup.cs! 😉

It works!!!!!!!!

one more for you..

Constants.UmbracoIndexes.ExternalIndexName

I always think, what's the point, becuase it's always going to be "ExternalIndex"

till we get index abstraction.. and it becomes

ExternalLuceneIndex

vs

ExternalElaticIndex

😉

I see your point, but we're not there yet. And I'm not of that level of ability to go swapping out search providers, lol

but yeah.. those it's always been that it's never gonna change.. even the core has "nodeName" as a magic string everywhere 🙂