search_help.txt

Searching
+++++++++

When a "_search" directory is present, it indicates that the UPnP device 
supports some kind of searching.

Searching is done in "_search" by entering a sub-directory name with
a specific search syntax : see "Basic search" and "Advanced search" below.

Each search (basic or advanced) can be refined using the sub-directories 
"_and" and "_or" found in results. These are equivalent to a single search 
grouping the previous search and the new search using the 'and' and 'or' 
logical operators.
For example:
	$ cd 's1'
	$ cd _and
	$ cd 's2'
is equivalent to searching for both criteria 's1' and 's2'.

When a search returns no result, no sub-directory is created :
   $ cd _search/non_existant_criteria
cd: _search/non_existant_criteria: No such file or directory



A) Basic search
===============

Searching is done in "_search" by entering a sub-directory name with only
*one* word. This word is searched in common properties for the objects 
(title, creator name, artists names, album name). It is ok to match only 
a part of these strings, and the match is case-insensitive.

For example, to search for all objects where the title, creator, artist or
album names contain the string "head" :
   $ cd _search
   $ cd head

This would match for example any track by group "Motorhead", or a track named 
"Can't Get You Out Of My Head", or any track from album "Head First".

To further refine the search, it is possible to use the "_and" and "_or"
sub-directories, as explained above.

Starting from the preceding example, to keep only only the "Motorhead" tracks,
one could do :
   $ cd _and
   $ cd mot



B) Advanced search
==================

Searching is done in "_search" by entering a sub-directory name with
a specific search syntax : see "Search criteria" below.

For example, to search for all objects where the title contains the string "by"
(note the single-quote around the criteria necessary for the shell) :
   $ cd _search
   $ ls 'dc:title contains "by"'

See more examples at the end of this document.


Advanced search criteria syntax 
-------------------------------

SearchCriteria directory names shall follow the following pseudo-grammar
(this grammar follows the SearchCriteria defined in the UPnP AV standard, 
as defined in the "ContentDirectory:1 Service Template Version 1.01" document).

Characters between 'single quote' must appear literally.


searchCriteria	::= searchExp | '*'
searchExp    	::= relExp | 
		    searchExp space+ logicalOp space+ searchExp | 
		    '(' space* searchExp space* ')' 
logicalOp	::= 'and' | 'or' 
relExp	     	::= property space+ binOp space+ quotedString | 
		    property space+ existsOp space+ boolean 
binOp	    	::= relOp | stringOp 
relOp		::= '=' | '!=' | '<' | '<=' | '>' | '>=' 
stringOp	::= 'contains' | 'doesNotContain' | 'derivedfrom' 
existsOp	::= 'exists' 
boolean		::= 'true' | 'false' 
space		::= ' '
quotedString	::= (1)
property	::= (2)


(1) a "quotedString" is a string enclosed within double-quotes '"'. Inside such
    strings, double-quote themselves shall be escaped e.g. represented as \" .

(2) a "property" represents a characteristic of an UPnP object. 
    Standard property names are normally defined, but are not necessarily 
    implemented by all devices (also, non-standard properties can be added) :
    see "Search capabilities" below for examples of standard properties.


Notes on search criteria
------------------------

- Search criteria expressions contain special characters that shall be quoted
  when used on the shell command line (e.g. '*', '<', '(', '"', ...). The
  easiest method is to enclose the whole criteria within 'single quote',
  as in the example in this document.

- double-quote (") shall be escaped within quotedString e.g. represented as \"

- Operator precedence, highest to lowest, is: 
	double quoting 
	( ) 
	binOp, existsOp 
	'and' 
	'or' 
  For example,
	$ cd 's1 and s2 or s3 or s4 and s5' 
  is equivalent to
	$ cd '((s1 and s2) or s3) or (s4 and s5)'

- Return all : the special criteria '*' means "find everything", or 
  "return all objects that exist beneath the selected starting directory"
  (beware of performances on large collections). 

- Property existence is queried for by using the 'exists' binary operator. 
  The criteria "actor exists true" is true for every object that has at least 
  one occurrence of the actor property. It is false for any object that has no
  actor property. Similarly, the criteria "actor exists false" is false for 
  every object that has at least one occurrence of the actor property. It is 
  true for any object that has no actor property. 

- Property omission : any property value query (as distinct from an existence 
  query) applied to an object that does not have that property, evaluates 
  to false. 

- Class derivation (see "Class hierarchy" below) : the 'derivedfrom' operator
  allows to query the existence of objects whose class is derived from some 
  base class specification. For example 'upnp:class derivedfrom "object.item"'
  is true for all objects whose class is, or begins with, "object.item".

- Numeric comparisons : when an operator in a criteria is a relOp ('=', '<',
  '<=', ...), the quotedString can be a decimal integer (sequence of decimal
  digits with an optional leading sign '+' or '-'). The comparison will be
  done numerically if the actual property is also a decimal integer. In all 
  other cases, the comparison is done by treating both values as strings.

- String comparisons : all operators when applied to strings use 
  case-insensitive comparisons. 


Advanced search capabilities
----------------------------

The "search_capabilities" file is a list of property names that can be used 
in search criteria. A wild-card ('*') indicates that the device supports 
search queries using all tags present in the device.

Some common properties are (not necessarily supported by all UPnP devices) :

dc:title 	Name of the object
dc:creator	Primary content creator or owner of the object 
upnp:artist	Name of an artist
upnp:genre	Name of the genre to which an object belongs 
upnp:album	Title of the album to which the object belongs
dc:date		Date of the object, of the form "YYYY-MM-DD" (ISO 8601 format) 
upnp:class	Class of the object
@id		An identifier for the object, unique within the UPnP device.


Advanced class hierarchy
------------------------

A class is used to assign a type to an object in an UPnP device, and identifies
the set of properties present on that object. Classes are organized in a 
hierarchy with certain classes being derived from others as in a typical object
oriented system. At the root of the class hierarchy is the 'object' base class.

Each class is named using a string in "dotted" notation:
     derivedName ::= ( 'object' | derivedName ) '.' shortName 
Some example are 'object', 'object.item', 'object.container', 
'object.item.audioItem.musicTrack' and 'object.container.album.musicAlbum'.

The UPnP AV standard defines a number of class descriptions that are derived 
from either the 'item' or 'container' classes : see figure below (only 
shortNames are displayed in the tree).
Device vendors are free to extend this list with other classes or properties.
 
 
  object
    |___ item
    |     |___ audioItem
    |     |      |___ musicTrack
    |     |      |___ audioBroadcast
    |     |      \___ audioBook
    |     |
    |     |___ videoItem
    |     |      |___ movie
    |     |      |___ videoBroadcast
    |     |      \___ musicVideoClip
    |     |
    |     |___ imageItem
    |     |      \___ photo
    |     |
    |     |___ playlistItem
    |     |
    |     \___ textItem
    |
    \___ container
          |___ album
          |      |___ musicAlbum
          |      \___ photoAlbum
          |
          |___ genre
          |      |___ musicGenre
          |      \___ movieGenre
          |
          |___ playlistContainer
          |
          |___ person
          |      \___ musicArtist
          |
          |___ storageSystem
          |___ storageVolume
          \___ storageFolder
 


Notes on these standard classes :

- 'item' : a derived class of 'object' used to represent "atomic" 
  content objects, i.e. object that don't contain other objects, for example, 
  a music track on an audio CD

- 'container' : a derived class of 'object' used to represent 
  containers e.g. a music album. In djmount, each container is mapped to a 
  directory.
  
- 'audioItem' : a piece of content that, when rendered, generates some audio. 
  Note that movies, TV broadcasts, etc., that also contain an audio track 
  are excluded from this definition : those objects should be classified 
  under 'videoItem' (see below).
  Standard derived classes are 'musicTrack' (audio that should be interpreted  
  as music e.g. a song), 'audioBroadcast' (a continuous stream of audio that 
  should be interpreted as an audio broadcast) and 'audioBook' (audio that
  should be interpreted as a book).

- 'videoItem' : a piece of content that, when rendered, generates some video. 
  Standard derived classes are 'movie' (video that should be interpreted 
  as a movie), 'videoBroadcast' (a continuous stream of video that should be 
  interpreted as a broadcast e.g. a conventional TV channel or a Webcast),
  and 'musicVideoClip' (video that should be interpreted as a clip supporting 
  a song).

- 'imageItem' : a piece of content that, when rendered, generates some still 
  image. A standard derived class is 'photo' (image that should be interpreted 
  as a photo, as opposed to, for example, an icon).

- 'playlistItem' : a playable sequence of resources. It is different from 
  'musicAlbum' in the sense that a 'playlistItem' may contain a mix 
  of audio, video and images and is typically created by a user, while an 
  'album' is typically a fixed published sequence of songs (e.g. an audio CD).
  A 'playlistItem' item is typically a reference to a playlist file 
  (e.g. an external M3U file). 

- 'textItem' : a piece of content that, when rendered, is readable as text.

- 'album' : an ordered collection of 'objects'. 
  Standard derived classes are 'musicAlbum' (which contains items of class 
  'musicTrack', or 'sub'-albums of class 'musicAlbum', e.g. an audio-CD) 
  and 'photoAlbum' (which contains items of class 'photo', or 'sub'-albums 
  of class 'photoAlbum').

- 'genre' : an unordered collection of 'objects' that "belong" to the genre,
  in a loose sense. 
  Standard derived classes are 'musicGenre' (genre which should be interpreted
  as a "style of music" e.g. "Rock") and 'movieGenre' (genre which should be 
  interpreted as a "style of movies" e.g. "Western").

- 'playlistContainer' : a collection of 'objects'. It is different from 
  'musicAlbum' in the sense that a 'playlistContainer' may contain a mix 
  of audio, video and images and is typically created by a user, while an
  'album' is typically a fixed published sequence of songs (e.g. an audio CD).
  
- 'person' : an unordered collection of 'objects' that "belong" to some people,
  in a loose sense. A standard derived class is 'musicArtist' (a music artist).

- 'storageSystem' : a potentially heterogeneous collection of storage media. 
  An example is a CD Jukebox.

- 'storageVolume' : some physical storage unit of a single type. Examples are 
  a Hard Disk Drive, a CD-Audio disc, or a Flash memory card.

- 'storageFolder' : a collection of objects stored on some storage medium. 
  Examples are a directory on a Hard Disk Drive, or a directory on CD-Rom.



Advanced search examples 
------------------------

a) Search for all content by singer Renaud
   i.e. search for all objects where 'dc:creator' is Renaud

   $ cd _search
   $ ls 'dc:creator = "Renaud"'

   Note that this is equivalent to 'dc:creator = "renaud"' because comparisons
   are case-insensitive.

 
b) Search for all photos taken during October 2005
   i.e. search for all photo objects whose 'dc:date' is in October 2005

   $ cd _search
   $ ls 'upnp:class = "object.item.imageItem.photo" and ( dc:date >= "2005-10-01" and dc:date <= "2005-10-31" )'

   Note that this is equivalent to the following breakdown, using "_and"
   sub-directories :

   $ cd _search
   $ cd 'upnp:class = "object.item.imageItem.photo"'
   $ cd _and
   $ ls 'dc:date >= "2005-10-01"/_and/dc:date <= "2005-10-31"'


c) Search for all objects in the My Photos folder containing the word Paris
   i.e. search for all objects where the 'dc:title' contains Paris under the 
   "My Photos" directory.

   $ cd "My Photos/_search"
   $ ls 'dc:title contains "Paris"'


d) Search for all album objects in the device
   i.e. search for all objects that are derived from object.container.album. 

   $ cd _search
   $ ls 'upnp:class derivedfrom "object.container.album"'