Subject:
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Re: Web interface search results
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.general
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Date:
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Tue, 24 Aug 1999 22:09:43 GMT
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Viewed:
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18590 times
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In lugnet.admin.general, "Robert Munafo" <munafo@gcctechNO.SPAMcom> writes:
> In lugnet.admin.general, Jeremy Sproat writes:
> > [...] I haven't been able to figure out how to use it; e.g., what is
> > the syntax to, say, modify the query to prefer articles from about four
> > months ago?
>
> It appears that for now we just have the recent (default) target time and
> 1-week sigma values. If there is a syntax for overriding these, Todd hasn't
> chosen to tell us about it. I would guess that it isn't yet ready for general
> use.
A syntax vis-à-vis URLs isn't yet defined, but how does this sound?--
There's currently q= for the query string:
http://www.lugnet.com/?q=jeremy+sproat
and qn= for subsequent pages of results:
http://www.lugnet.com/?q=jeremy+sproat&qn=60
so there are still 25 possibilities in the q*= namespace. How about qt= for
the target time and qs= for the sigma (provided that some other non-greek
mnemonic can be identified for 's'):
http://www.lugnet.com/?q=jeremy+sproat&qt=-10519200&qs=2629800
4 months is about 10519200 seconds, and 1 month is about 2629800 seconds, so
that query would mean "prefer articles from about four months ago, with a
preferential spread of about a week or two either way."
For clipping absolute time ranges, how do qt0= and qt1= sound?--
http://www.lugnet.com/?q=jeremy+sproat&qt0=-1814400&qt1=-0
with the sign of qt0-qt1 specifying the sort order, chronological or reverse
chronological.
As far as the numerical values themselves go, they could absolute times in
the standard epoch format (seconds since 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT) or
relative times or both, or expressed in hours or days instead of seconds.
I'd favor seconds and standard epoch time, with a transparent query
generator page. That is, say the advanced search page is at /news/search/,
and you specify "about 4 months ago." Then it should calculate the current
time minus 10519200 seconds for you automatically, and do a double-CGI call:
first to process the form and convert "4 months" into 10519200 and second to
respond to the query itself. (I wouldn't want to litter the URL line with
all of the possible options present on the actual human-interface form
because it's important to keep the URLs short and to separate (abstract) the
query interface layers.)
So when you click the Go button on the advanced search page, it would do
that via HTTP POST (not GET), and that script would interpret the query, and
rewrite it into a URL which gets spit out via a Location: header to enact
the actual query. (It would be 99% transparent -- all you'd actually see in
your browser is "contacting host..." twice in rapid succession.)
In the URL parser, positive values for time could be interpreted as absolute
values and negative values for time could be interpreted as relative values
(relative to the current time).
--Todd
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | Re: Web interface search results
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| (...) Sure, sounds okay. I'm a little nervous about handling raw seconds; the big numbers make my puny earthling brain hurt. :-, How about using the same syntax used in the traffic report page; e.g. (URL) what's happened in the past 6 hours. How (...) (25 years ago, 24-Aug-99, to lugnet.admin.general)
| | | Re: Web interface search results
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| Do we REALLY need the precision that seconds bring us? :-) I'd vote for days or at least hours. Even for a non human readable API like this one, go with data that's understandable to humans and let the machines keep the books straight. (25 years ago, 24-Aug-99, to lugnet.admin.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Web interface search results
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| (...) It appears that for now we just have the recent (default) target time and 1-week sigma values. If there is a syntax for overriding these, Todd hasn't chosen to tell us about it. I would guess that it isn't yet ready for general use. - Robert (...) (25 years ago, 24-Aug-99, to lugnet.admin.general)
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