[hibernate-dev] SQM-11 : Consider a new matches operator - thoughts?

[Sanne Grinovero]

I think we all agree that we want at least the high level intent of an
HQL query to be understandable without having to keep a reference
sheet of its special symbols at hand.

I would interpret that "~" symbol differently, so I don't think it's
suited to imply some special meaning related to "null" and while I
normally understand we argue about "naming things" as we all have
different language backgrounds, this one seems universally established
in the scientific world, so I'm afraid that it would look a really odd
choice to most users.

Gunnar's proposal looks better, as that's commonly used in similar
scenarios: beyond Groovy, it's commonly used for ternary operator
which is essentially a short hand for a conditional:
  - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%3F:

On full-text query, looks like a clarification is in order on why I
was thinking about that symbol specifically:
A full-text query goes far beyond "containing" some keywords; for
example it can provide matches on synonyms, disregard typos, expand
acronyms, or even give different semantic value for words depending on
their position and role in a sentence. The match is really about
"search stuff which is semantically similar to this".
I realize that most SQL technologies provide only a limited subset of
such options, and that's exactly why we provide alternatives like
Hibernate Search which do much more and better ;-)
i.e. with Search such an operator would mean "equals or almost
equals", for some definition of "almost equals" which we allow the
user to specify precisely in the mapping and configuration.

Thanks,
Sanne

On 29 August 2015 at 18:21, Steve Ebersole <steve at hibernate.org> wrote:
> Sorry, but I agree with Brett.  CONTAINS is a much more natural way to
> perform a full-text search, especially for those coming from SQL.
>
> On Sat, Aug 29, 2015 at 1:47 AM Gunnar Morling <gunnar at hibernate.org> wrote:
>
>> I like the idea of a new operator, but I side with Sanne that "~"
>> would be useful for similarity/full-text searches.
>>
>> What about "?=", somewhat inspired by Groovy's Elvis operator? It
>> seems nicer to me for expressing null-awareness. The pattern could
>> even be generalized by using the operator prefix for making some more
>> comparison operators null-aware: "?<", "?>" etc.
>>
>> --Gunnar
>>
>>
>>
>> 2015-08-28 16:36 GMT+02:00 Brett Meyer <brett at hibernate.org>:
>> > +1 to ~.  Sanne has a good point, but I think I'd rather see a function
>> > name there (CONTAINS, etc.).
>> >
>> > On 08/28/2015 10:09 AM, Sanne Grinovero wrote:
>> >> On 28 August 2015 at 15:02, Steve Ebersole <steve at hibernate.org> wrote:
>> >>> What do y'all think of using a symbol like ~ for this?  The idea would
>> be
>> >>> similar to the "wavy equals" from logic used to denote "approximately
>> >>> equals".
>> >> I was hoping that one day we would be able to use the '~' symbol for
>> >> full-text queries, i.e. a fuzzy match for text fields to extend HQL.
>> >> But we have no concrete plans about that, and we currently don't do a
>> >> great job in allowing people to combine full-text restrictions with
>> >> relational restrictions, so that might be an unrealistic dream.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>> On Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 7:05 AM andrea boriero <andrea at hibernate.org>
>> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>> i like the idea of "matches" operator for dealing with "is null".
>> >>>> +1
>> >>>>
>> >>>> On 26 August 2015 at 19:32, Steve Ebersole <steve at hibernate.org>
>> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>>> https://hibernate.atlassian.net/browse/SQM-11
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