contains() doesn't return hits for matched fields that have only one value?

[davecan]

File A:

---
field: foo
---

File B:

---
field:
- foo
- bar
---

This query returns only A as expected, because it is matching a string vs a list:

list from "" where field = foo

This query only returns B which is unexpected:

list from "" where contains(field, foo)

Intuitively I would expect the above query to return both A and B. But maybe I'm missing something in how it works.

[blacksmithgu]

As a side note, you don't need FROM "" anymore (it is implied if not present).

Does

LIST WHERE contains(field, "foo")

work? I feel like it should work (since a string trivially contains itself).

[davecan]

Negative. The actual query (without FROM) looks more like this: (in file foo)

list where contains(field, this.file.link)
sort file.name

"foo" etc in the example above are actually [[links]] so they really look more like this:

File A:

---
field: [[foo]]
---

File B:

---
field:
- [[foo]]
- [[bar]]
---

The query in foo should (intuitively, I was thinking the same as you) return the following:

- File A
- File B

What the query in foo actually returns is:

- File B

If I change File A to look like this:

---
field: 
- [[foo]]
---

Then the query in foo returns this:

- File A
- File B

As expected. But it implies that if I expect to add more than a single value to any field in the future then I should make all fields - list style so I can standardize on contains() instead of equality operators in searches. Which I take it is not the intent.

Hope that is more clear. Thanks.

[blacksmithgu]

Ah, is this operating over links? I understand what's going on then, I think - contains(link, <thing>) does the same thing that contains(object, <thing>) does - it retrives the metadata from [[link]] and then checks if the thing is in that metadata.

I will modify this so that contains() does an equality check BEFORE doing any other magic, so this case should work.

[davecan]

Yes it is operating over links. Thanks.

[blacksmithgu]

Fixed in upcoming release 0.2.10.

[davecan]

I'm experiencing this behavior again in the current version 0.2.14.

Some files have:

topic: [[note]]

Others have:

topic:
- [[note]]
- [[note 2]]

This query only returns notes that have the list, and does not return notes that have topic: [[note]]:

table status
where contains(topic, this.file.link)
sort file.name

This query only returns notes that have the strict equality topic: [[note]] and not the ones where [[note]] is contained in a list:

table status
where topic = this.file.link
sort file.name

[the-tanvan]

For v0.5.47, I also had a similar issue and found that adding quotes around the link allowed it to be queried by the contains function.

Try putting double quotes around the link for the case where there is a single link:
topic: "[[note]]"

The query with the contains function should then return both cases.

In the documentation, it says

If you reference a link in frontmatter, you need to quote it, as so: key: "[[Link]]". This is default Obsidian-supported behavior. Please be aware that this is only a link for dataview, but not for Obsidian anymore - that ultimatively means it won't show up in the Outgoing links and won't be updated on i.e. a rename.

[AB1908]

@davecan OR the two ideas together? I wonder if it's a type mismatch. If so, you can use array() to cast it before you use contains().