Advanced search: empty/empty fields

l2lafitte

Anyone could tell me how to search for an empty field? a non-empty field? I tried to use % for it, but it doesn't seem to suit this case.

It would help me when having to check which items miss information

Thanks

Tjowens

I think you are on the right track. % does should get you where you want to go. For example, it you set up a advanced search where Item Type is Book and Call Number does not contain % you will get a list of all the book items you have that do not have call numbers. If you save the search and go through adding the call numbers to those items they will no longer be included in that saved search.

Now, the issue that is probably plaguing you is (for better or worse) Advanced Search treats an item not having a field as the same as not having any data in that field. In other words, if you run the before mentioned Advanced Search without the qualification of only looking at book items you will end up with all of your books that don't have call numbers and all of the items, like webpages and blog posts, that do not have call number fields.

With this said, if you include qualifications for item types that actually have the given field you want to search through wildcard searches for is not % should only return results for empty data fields.

l2lafitte

I certainly lacked confidence in my query, when testing.

After reading your post, I made new tries, and it works properly, as follows :

1/ field=% => no item is selected
2/ field not=%" or field doesn't contain % => empty fields
3/ field contains % => non-empty fields

Thanks very much for your help

Gracile

Thanks for that! Just a quick comment:

After reading your post, I made new tries, and it works properly, as follows :

1/ field=% => no item is selected
2/ field not=%" or field doesn't contain % => empty fields
3/ field contains % => non-empty fields

2/ (i.e. empty fields) does not work for "field not=%" and works well for "field doesn't contain %"