Help with API GetRows Query partial match?

Developers Central
1

I am trying to do a simple API query to return all Contacts whose last name is “Smith”.
However I cant seem to partially match on the [Full Name] column.

For example: Lets assume I have the following people in my contacts table.

  • John Smith
  • Jane Smith

I can return the row with John Smith using the following GET call:
https://coda.io/apis/v1/docs/{DocId}/tables/{tableId}/rows?query={FullNameColumnId}:“John Smith”

QUESTION:
How can I return all contacts with last name smith?
I was hoping wild card characters or regex would help but I cant seem to make it behave.
E.g.

  • WILD CARD: query={FullNameColumnId}:“*Smith”
  • Regex: query={FullNameColumnId}:“.*Smith”
    (These don’t work for me, but I have put them here in case someone can point out a simple error I am making)

Finally, this is a simplified example of what I am trying to achieve. For this reason I cannot simply create a last name column and query based on that. If I did the query would fail if a full name or first name is entered.

Thanks for your help!

2

Hi @Logan_Krantz - Unfortunately this is a known limitation in the query syntax for rows. We currently only support an exact match, which I recognize isn’t going to work for your use case.

One workaround is to load all of the rows from the table, and then do the search / filter within your application. You have complete control over how the search is done, but there may be speed and memory considerations.

We’ve had a few other developers also ask for a more advanced query syntax, and I’ll pass this feedback on to the team.

3

Hi Eric,

Thanks for your quick and informative response.

Sadly the speed considerations are significant. Due to pagination its common to make 6+ calls. Since the API calls are the bulk of the run time this increases user delay by nearly 6 times compared to a single call with a query.

Please consider this another request for this feature.

Apart from that please also pass on an appreciation for the beautiful piece of software that is coda :grinning:

1 Like
4

Request noted, and I’ll pass along your appreciation :slight_smile: