BQuery¶

A query is a means of asking the file system for a set of entries that satisfy certain criteria. As examples, you can ask for all the entries with names that start with a certain letter, or that have nodes that are bigger than a certain size, or that were modified within the last N days, and so on.

The BQuery class lets you create objects that represent specific queries. To use a BQuery you have to follow these steps:

Initialize. The first thing you have to do is initialize the object; there are two parts to the initialization: You have to set the volume that you want to query over (SetVolume()), and set the query’s “criteria formula” (SetPredicate())
Fetch. After the BQuery has been properly initialized, you invoke Fetch(). The function returns immediately while the query executes in the background.
Read. As soon as Fetch() returns, you can start reading the list of winning entries by making iterative calls to the entry-list functions GetNextRef(), GetNextEntry(), and GetNextDirents(). If you ask for entries faster than the query can deliver them, your GetNext…() call will block until the next entry arrives. The function returns an error when there are no more entries to retrieve.

The set of entries that the GetNext…() calls retrieve (for a given fetch) are called the query’s “static” entries. This distinction will become useful when we speak of “live” queries, below.

Reusing your BQuery¶

Want to go around again? You can, but first you have to clear the object:

Between each “fetching session,” you have to invoke Clear() on your BQuery object.

Clearing erases the object’s predicate, volume, target (which we’ll get to later), and list of static entries—in other words, clearing gets you back to a fresh BQuery object.

And speaking of going around again, be aware that the Rewind() function, which BQuery inherits from BEntryList, is implemented to be a no-op: You can’t rewind a BQuery’s list of static entries. After you’ve performed a fetch, you should read the entry list as quickly as possible and get on with things; you can’t turn back or start over.

CountEntries() is also a no-op. This function is also defined by BEntryList. It doesn’t apply to BQuerys.

Live Queries¶

A live query is the gift that keeps on giving. After you tell a live query to fetch, you walk through the entry list (as described above), and then you wait for “query update” messages to be sent to your “target.” A query update message describes a single entry that has changed so that…

it now satisfies the predicate (where it didn’t use to), or…
it no longer satisfies the predicate (where it did before).

Not every BQuery is live; you have to tell it you want it to be live. To do this, all you have to do is set the object’s target, through the SetTarget() function. The target is a BMessenger that identifies a BHandler/BLooper pair (as described in the SetTarget() function). Also…

Live query notifications stop when you Clear() or destroy the BQuery object.

Another important point regarding live queries is that you can start receiving updates before you’re done looking at all the static entries (in other words, before you’ve reached the end of the GetNext…() loop). It’s possible that your target could receive an “entry dropped out” update before you retrieve the entry through a GetNext…() call. If you’re using live queries, you should take care in synchronizing the GetNext…() iteration with the target’s message processing.

We’ll look at the format of the update message in a moment; first, let’s fill in some gaps.

The Predicate, Attributes, and Indices¶

A BQuery’s predicate is a logical expression that evaluates to true or false. The “atoms” of the expression are comparisons in the form…

attribute op value

…where attribute is the name of an existing attribute, op is a constant that represents a comparison operation (==, <, >, etc), and value is the value that you want to compare the attribute to.

Attributes¶

As mentioned above, the attribute part of a query is a string name. When you tell the query to fetch, the file system looks for all nodes that have an attribute with that name and then compare the attribute’s value to the appropriate value in the predicate. However…

Every query must include at least one indexed attribute.
The index only knows about attributes that were written after the index (for that attribute) was created.

To index an attribute, you call the fs_create_index() function. Unfortunately, there’s currently no way to retroactively include existing attributes in a newly created index. (Such a utility would be simple enough to write, but it would take a long time to execute since it would have to look at every file in the file system.)

Only string and numeric attributes can be queried. Although an attribute can hold any type of data (it’s stored as raw bytes), the query mechanism can only perform string and numeric comparisons.

On the bright side, every file gets three attributes for free:

“name” is the name of the entry.
“size” is the size of the data portion of the entry’s node. The size is a 64-bit integer, and doesn’t include the node’s attributes.
“last_modified” is the time the entry’s node was last modified (data and attributes), measured in seconds since January 1, 1970. The modification time is recorded as a 32-bit integer.

Technically, “name”, “size”, and “last_modified” aren’t actually attributes—you can’t get them through BNode::ReadAttr(), for example. But they’re always eligible as the attribute component in a query.

Values¶

The value part of the “attribute op value” equation is any expression that can be evaluated at the time the predicate is set. Once evaluated, the value doesn’t change. For example, you can’t specify another attribute as the value component in hopes of comparing, file by file, the value of one attribute to the value of another. The value is just data. And data is data.

The type of the value should match the type of the attribute: You compare string attributes to strings; numeric attributes to numbers. You aren’t prevented from comparing a string to a number (for example), but it may not give you the result you expect.

Warning

The value of an indexed attribute can be, at most, 255 bytes.

Constructing a Predicate¶

There are two ways to construct a predicate:

You can set the predicate formula as a string through SetPredicate(), or
You can construct the predicate by “pushing” the components in Reverse Polish Notation (or “postfix”) order through the PushAttr(), PushValue…(), and PushOp() functions. There are seven value-pushing functions that push specific types: string, int32, uint32, int64, uint64, float, and double.

You can’t combine the methods: Pushing the predicate always takes precedence over SetPredicate(), regardless of the order in which the methods are deployed.

SetPredicate() features:

Comparison operators: = < > <= >= !=
Logical operators: || &&
Negation operator: !
Grouping: ()
String (value) wildcard: * (prefix and/or postfix only)
String (value) quoting: ‘ ‘

The following are all legitimate strings that you can pass to SetPredicate():

size < 500

(name = fido) || (size >= 500)

(! ((name = *id*) || ( 'final utterance' = 'pass the salt'))) &&
(last_modified > 1024563)

Push features:

The PushOp() function takes operator symbols, such as B_EQ (equals), B_GT (greater than), B_LT (less than), and so on. The complete list is given in the PushOp() function description.
Value strings passed as arguments to PushString() are naturally quoted, so you don’t have to single-quote to embed spaces or other odd characters.
The ‘*’ wildcard is allowed, or you can use special “contains”, “begins with”, and “ends with” operators.

In Reverse Polish Notation, the operator is postfixed. You then push the components from left to right. For example, this…

size < 500

…becomes…

size 500 <

The push sequence is…

query.PushAttr("size");
query.PushInt32(500);
query.PushOp(B_LT);

Another example; this…

(name = fido) || (size >= 500)

…becomes…

(name fido =) (size 500 >=) ||

In code:

query.PushAttr("name");
query.PushString("fido");
query.PushOp(B_EQ);
query.PushAttr("size");
query.PushInt32(500);
query.PushOp(B_GE);
query.PushOp(B_OR);

There are no grouping operators in this notation; they’re not needed—grouping is implied by the order in which the components are pushed.

When you’re performing a numeric comparison, the Push…() function that you choose doesn’t have to exactly match the natural type of the attribute, but you can’t mix integers and floating point. For example, even though “size” is a 64 bit value, you can compare it to an int32…

query.PushAttr("size");
query.PushInt32(2000);
query.PushOp(B_GE);

But you can’t (or shouldn’t) compare it to a float…

query.PushAttr("size");
query.PushInt32(2000);
query.PushOp(B_GE);

Query Update Messages¶

The BMessages that are delivered by a live query have a what field of B_QUERY_UPDATE. The rest of the message depends on what happened:

If the update is telling you that an entry has passed the predicate, the message’s opcode field will be B_ENTRY_CREATED.
If the update is telling you that an entry has been eliminated from the query, the opcode field will be B_ENTRY_REMOVED.

Note that the format of the messages that a live query generates are the same as the similarly-opcode’d Node Monitor messages. The only difference is the what field (the what for Node Monitor messages is B_NODE_MONITOR).

Entry Created¶

The B_ENTRY_CREATED opcode means an entry has changed so that it now passes the query’s predicate. The message’s fields are:

Field	Type code	Description
opcode	`B_INT32_TYPE`	`B_ENTRY_CREATED`
name	`B_STRING_TYPE`	The name of the new entry.
directory	`B_INT64_TYPE`	The ino_t (node) number for the directory in which the entry was created.
device	`B_INT32_TYPE`	The dev_t number of the device on which the new entry resides.
node	`B_INT64_TYPE`	The ino_t number of the new entry itself. (More accurately, it identifies the node that corresponds to the entry.)

If you want to cache a reference to the entry, notice that you can create an entry_ref and a node_ref with the data in the message’s fields:

/* Create an entry_ref */
entry_ref ref;
const char* name;
...
msg->FindInt32("device", &ref.device);
msg->FindInt64("directory", &ref.directory);
msg->FindString("name", &name);
ref.set_name(name);

/* Create a node_ref */
node_ref nref;
status_t err;

...
msg->FindInt32("device", &nref.device);
msg->FindInt64("node", &nref.node);

The node_ref is handy because you may want to start monitoring the node (through a call to the Node Monitor). We’ll get back to this point when discussing B_ENTRY_REMOVED messages.

Entry Removed¶

The B_ENTRY_REMOVED opcode means an entry used to pass the predicate, but something has changed (in the entry or the entry’s node) so that now it doesn’t.

Field	Type code	Description
opcode	`B_INT32_TYPE`	`B_ENTRY_REMOVED`
directory	`B_INT64_TYPE`	The ino_t (node) number of the directory from which the entry was removed.
device	`B_INT32_TYPE`	The dev_t number of the device that the removed node used to live on.
node	`B_INT64_TYPE`	The ino_t number of the node that was removed.

Notice that the B_ENTRY_REMOVED message doesn’t tell you the name of the entry. This is an unfortunate oversight that will be corrected. In the meantime, if you need to match the node in this message to an entry from a previous B_ENTRY_CREATED (or that you got from a GetNext…() invocation), you have to keep track of the entry/node yourself. However, the location of the entry that “contains” the node may have changed since the time that the entry passed the predicate. Follow this outline:

You set up a live query ask for entries that have nodes larger than 500 bytes.
The query mechanism tells you (either in the static set or through a B_ENTRY_CREATED message) that /boot/home/fido/data satisfies the predicate.
You create an entry_ref and a node_ref to the entry, and cache them away somewhere.
The user then renames or moves the entry. The query mechanism doesn’t tell you about this change—it only cares about the size of the node, not its name
You get a B_ENTRY_REMOVED message. You create a node_ref from the message and match it to your cache—and get an out-of-date entry_ref.

To get around the lack of a “name” field, you should monitor the nodes that you receive in your initial GetNext…() calls and B_ENTRY_CREATED messages.