Talk:Test includematch

Includematch searches all fields instead of just one (bug?)

I tested the following example and noticed strange includematch behaviour.

<dpl>
category=African Country
includepage={African Country}:languages,{African Country}:government_type,{African Country}:area,{African Country}:population,{African Country}:gdp,{African Country}:independence_day
mode=userformat
listseparators=¶{|class=sortable ¶!No ¶! Name ¶! Languages ¶! Government ¶! Area ¶! Population ¶! GDP ¶! Independence Day , ¶|-¶|%NR%¶|[[%PAGE%]] , ,¶|}
secseparators=¶|
resultsheader=Number of data = %PAGES%
includematch=/languages\s*=\s*.*English.*/s
</dpl>

Try for example replacing

includematch=/languages\s*=\s*.*English.*/s

with

includematch=/languages\s*=\s*.*1961.*/s

and you still got a result because the "Independance day" column is searched. Shouldn't only the "Languages" column being searched? --Mark P. 23:25, 22 November 2007 (CET)

Reply and Explanation

First, the DPL statement above could be written more elegantly, using the table command. The table command was invented recently to facilitate standard view definitions.

Second the regexep uses ".*" before 'English' or '1961'. This means that also pipe characters will be skipped - so '1961' will be accepted if it occurs ANYWHERE AFTER 'languages'. What you wnat, however, is to stop the pattern matching at field boundaries /(i.e. at pipoe characters). Therefore you must use [^|]* instead of .* which will match alöl characters EXCEPT The field delimiting pipe charcter.

<dpl>
 category=African Country
 namespace=
 include={African Country}:languages:government_type:area:population:gdp:independence_day
 includematch=/languages\s*=\s*[^|]*English/s
 table=class=sortable,Name,Languages,Government,Area,Population,GDP,Independence Day
 resultsheader=Number of data = %PAGES%\n
 noresultsheader= no matching country found.\n
</dpl>

And here is the result with 'English':

Number of data = 3

Name	Languages	Government	Area	Population	GDP	Independence Day
DPL Example 015
Republic of Cameroon	French,English		183,568 sq mi	17,795,000	$43.196 billion	01/10/1961
United Republic of Tanzania	Swahili, English		364,898 sq mi	37,849,133	$27.12 billion	26/04/1964

.. and with '1961'

Number of data = 1

Name	Languages	Government	Area	Population	GDP	Independence Day
DPL Example 015

Note: If you use the #dpl parser function notation you must not use the pipe directly because it would be misperceived as a field demiter for #dpl itself. IN that case you should use something like [^{{!}}]* (assuming that there is a template called ! which retuzrn s a single pipe character.