Search is broken/Rework search

[swalkerhppr]

Search is not working well, at least the get search is broken, it does not respect marshaling tags and just uses field name.
When a query fails it just returns everything.

I need to rework querying to work with the json tags on fields.

[swalkerhppr]

The implementation should be:

• Terse -- as short as possible
• Understandable -- clear query intent
• Workable-- works well with js request libraries and able to type by hand

Also I would want to be able use GET or POST requests.
POST requests should be pretty straight forward because of the ability to use json.
POST requests should also follow the same schema to make it easy to use the same code.

So for a model like:

type Posts struct {
  ID string `gorm:primaryKey`
  CreatedAt time.Time
  Text string
  UserID string
  User
}

I would want the ability to query:

1. All posts which have a specified substring
2. All posts by a user
3. All posts created after a date
4. All the above combined
5. Supports and/or combinations

Options for GET:

option A

As q fields

1. /post?q[text]=SUBSTRING,in
2. /post?q[user_id]=USER_ID
3. /post?q[created_at]=DATE,gt
4. /post?q[text]=SUBSTRING,in&q[user_id]=USER_ID]&q[created_at]=DATE,gt
5. /post?q[text]=SUBSTRING,in&q[text]=OTHER,in

Pros:

• easy to understand for "and" queries
• doesn't try to force queries into model structure
• operations are clearly separated
  Cons:
• "Or" queries can be a bit confusing
• Order of value,operator matters (easy to mess up)
• Not sure how well js request libraries would work with it
• Commas would need to be escaped somehow

option B

As underscored values (what was attempted to implement so far)

1. /post?text_in=SUBSTRING
2. /post?user_id=USER_ID
3. /post?created_at__gt=DATE
4. /post?text__in=SUBSTRING&user_id=USER_ID&created_at__gt=DATE
5. /post?text__in=SUBSTRING&text__in=OTHER

Pros:

• easy to understand
• operations are clearly separated
• can pass in a list for matching substrings
  Cons:
• Or vs and is not well defined
• Underscore operators can be confusing

I'll have to keep thinking about more options.