Query Expressions

The COMAND query languages (cPath, cQL, cQuery) share some common syntax to reference fields, compare values and perform operations.

Dot-Notation

Dot notation is used to reference object field values. A chain of fields can be specified to traverse an object field hierarchy. Each object field in the chain is separated by a dot. Dot notation is used to reference objects through any type of object or collection field, including through embedded, forward-reference and back-reference fields.

For example, the following cQL uses dot-notation to reference the Name field of an object in the State field of an object in the Address field of a Contact object.

SELECT Address.State.Name FROM Contact

Collection Indexes and Ranges

A field, variable or cPath that references a collection can be followed by an index or range to reference a single object or subset of objects within the collection, based on the position of the objects within the collection.

[x] - 0 based index
[-x] - Index from end
[x..y] - Range

For example, the following cPath will get the first Image in the Gallery folder.

/Gallery/[:Images][0]

Collection indexes and ranges are not currently supported in cQL, only cPath and cScript.

Text Strings

A text string is single- or double-quoted text that can be used in an expression to compare a field, variable or other value to text. For convenience, in some cases (where noted), a string that begins with a letter and only contains letters and numbers does not need to be quoted. The following character sequences have special meaning in a quoted string.

\' - represents a single quote (useful inside single-quoted strings, but also allowed in double-quoted strings)
\" - represents a double quote (useful inside double-quoted strings, but also allowed in single-quoted strings)
\n - represents a newline character
\r - represents a carriage return character
\t - represents a tab character
\\ - represents a single backslash

Comparison Operators

Comparison operators are not case sensitive. However, it is common practice to write them in all uppercase.

= - Equal
IS - Equal
!= - Not equal
NOT - Not equal
< - Less than
<= - Less than or equal
> - Greater than
>= - Greater than or equal
LIKE - Match a value against a quoted string where % and _ have special meaning. % means "any string of any length" and _ means "any single character". \% and \_ are used to represent an actual % or _ character respectively.
ILIKE - Similar to LIKE, except performs a case-insensitive and accent-character-insensitive match.
RLIKE - Match a value against a quoted regular expression (an Extended Regular Expression to be specific), which is much more powerful than the simple % and _ used by LIKE.
BETWEEN x AND y - Range comparison.
IN(x, y, z) - Set comparison.

For example, the following cPath will get Images in the Gallery folder with a Width greater than or equal to 320 and a Filename that ends with ".png".

/Gallery/[:Images AND Width >= 320 AND Filename ILIKE '%.png']

Logic Operators

Logic operators are not case sensitive. However, it is common practice to write them in all uppercase.

AND - Logical AND
OR - Logical OR
NOT - Logical NOT

Arithmetic Operators

+ - Addition
- - Subtraction
* - Multiplication
/ - Division
% or MOD - Modulo

Bit Operators

TODO