How to filter multiple attributes by 'contains' instead of exact string?

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,
#1

Hi,

Say I have a list of books that i want to search through. I want to find books where the title contains the word “World” by any author that contains the word “King”, how would I go about accomplishing this?

example:

search all attributes of a book - title, description, subject, author, etc etc by keyword: “Dragon”
author contains “King”
title contains “World”

How do to a 'contains' in a specific attribute
#2

Hi,

Assuming you are using InstantSearch, the solution would be to use RefinementLists for the author, title, and keyword.

You can read more about them here: refinementList | InstantSearch.js | API parameters | API Reference | Algolia Documentation

const search = instantsearch({
  appID: ..., // check the documentation here: https://www.algolia.com/doc/api-reference/widgets/instantsearch/js/
  ...
});

const authorList = instantsearch.widgets.refinementList({
  container: '#author-refinement-list',
  attribute: 'author', // assuming you have a field called author in your records
  searchable: true // assuming the facet is defined as searchable in your configuration
});

const keywordList = instantsearch.widgets.refinementList({
  container: '#keyword-refinement-list',
  attribute: 'keyword', // assuming you have a field called keyword in your records
  searchable: true, // assuming the facet is defined as searchable in your configuration
});

const titleList = instantsearch.widgets.refinementList({
  container: '#title-refinement-list',
  attribute: 'title', // assuming you have a field called title in your records
  searchable: true, // assuming the facet is defined as searchable in your configuration
});

search.addWidgets([titleList, authorList, refinementList])

... // rest of your setup

search.start() // enable search

This should do what you are looking for, but it might be more natural for you users to have a main search bar that searches in all those fields at the same time as well (using the searchBox widget: searchBox | InstantSearch.js | API parameters | API Reference | Algolia Documentation). The users could then rely on the refinement lists as a fallback if they want to restrict their searches to a specific author / keyword, etc.

I hope that helps!

#3

Hi Jonathan,

Unfortunately I am not using instant search. I am using the javascript api client. how would I accomplish this without using instant search?

#4

Hi @john8 !

Using the Javascipt API client, you could first look for every record where author contains King using the searchForFacetValues method. This method will return matching facetHits.

Then, you can run a standard search for Dragon using the facetHits as facetFilters to get all books that match the query Dragon where author contains King.

Best,