Searching key words across two fields

[Sofiyan]

Hello - I have tried multiple solutions but none have resulted in the desired output. 

I am searching for keywords in two fields ("Name" and "Description"). I have seen many posts using Search or Filter or custom formulas but without any success. Here is the breakdown of what I have tried and their outcome. Anything the community can add/provide clarity on?

Solution 1: Here I used filter but it does not like the || (OR operator). When I search for even a single word, no results populate.

With({kValue: SearchBar.Text}, Filter(Columns, kValue=Description || kValue=Name))

Solution 2: This should be intuitive and easy but nothing populates when I search.

Search(Columns, SearchBar.Text, "Description", "Name")

Solution 3: This came from a great post by @CalfordMath  but I am confused by his use of the "Results" field. Not sure what it refers to and what I should add from my own dataset to make this code complete.

Filter(
    Columns,
    IsBlank(
        Find(
            "0",
            Concat(
                Filter(
                    Split(
                        SearchBar.Text,
                        "," //or any delimiter.
                    ),
                    !IsBlank(Result)
                ),
                If(
                    TrimEnds(Result) in Name || TrimEnds (Result) in Description, // etc.
                    "1",
                    "0"
                )
            )
        )
    )
)

Solution 4: This solution works but only for value that start with the keyword. I am looking for values where keyword is found anywhere in the string.

Filter(Columns, StartsWith(Name, SearchBar.Text))

[Horatio]

Hi @Sofiyan , 

Hoping I understood your issue correctly: 

If solution 4 almost fits what you need, maybe you can try this formula : 

Filter('YourDataSourceName', SearchBar.Text in Name || SearchBar.Text in Description)

Let me know if that worked.

[Sofiyan]

tried that also - it the same issue as Solution 1. PowerApps does not like the  || (Or operator). Not sure why...here is the error that renders when || is used.

[CalfordMath]

Hi @Sofiyan , It's been a while! **Updated Reply** I had to re-read my own post to remember my thought process.  I just had a look at my original code and true, there was more going on with the "Result".  I had actually used "ForAll( Split( ... ), {Result: ThisRecord.Value}) but looking back, I don't know why I complicated it that way!  You could just use ThisRecord.Value instead of Result.  Here is a better code snippet

Filter(
    Columns,
    IsBlank(
        Find(
            "0",
            Concat(
                Filter(
                    Split(
                        SearchBar.Text,
                        "," //or any delimiter.
                    ),
                    !IsBlank(ThisRecord.Value)
                ),
                If(
                    TrimEnds(ThisRecord.Value) in Name || TrimEnds (ThisRecord.Value) in Description, // etc.
                    "1",
                    "0"
                )
            )
        )
    )
)

We go through each Value of the array (i.e. search word) returned by the Split, and check if it is contained in any of the columns of the search table referenced at the very start of the code ("Columns"), and tell it to concatenate a "1" if it is found.  The || (or operator) is used since the key word need only be found in one of the columns to count.  If all the keywords get a "1" then they were all found, whereas if one of them wasn't found in any column, it appended "0" to the string and we'd get something like "101" or "011".  A string like this will be created for every record (row) of the "Columns" data source you are Filtering, so the condition to include a record is that it must come up empty when looking for "0" in the string. 

I hope this helps! 

[Sofiyan]

@CalfordMath thank you for coming out of hibernation! I figured that Result is simply part of the function and need not be changed; however, I was thrown into a loop with an error from PowerApps. Here is what I get when I keep Result in play as you wrote it...

[WarrenBelz]

@Sofiyan ,

The output of Split() is now Value, not Result

[CalfordMath]

Good to know! Thanks @WarrenBelz! I updated my original reply to use ThisRecord.Value instead of Result.  

[Sofiyan]

@WarrenBelz - Thank you. I updated the code.

@CalfordMath - After the updates, here are the observations with screenshots. Any idea on what could be the issue?

- Keywords Assets and tags separately bring results but together they don't bring back any results...

Obfuscated a few records but the first records shows Asset returns results.

Tags and Assets brings back no results:

Logic used in Gallery's item field.

Filter(
    Columns,
    IsBlank(
        Find(
            "0",
            Concat(
                Filter(
                    Split(
                        SearchBar.Text,
                        "," //or any delimiter.
                    ),
                    !IsBlank(ThisRecord.Value)
                ),
                If(
                    TrimEnds(ThisRecord.Value) in Name || TrimEnds (ThisRecord.Value) in Description, // etc.
                    "1",
                    "0"
                )
            )
        )
    )
)

[CalfordMath]

Could you include your code, showing the split function and filtering? It’s hard to tell much from what you showed. 

[Sofiyan]

@CalfordMath absolutely. It's pretty much the same code that we have talked about (the one that you originally wrote). I have appended it to my previous comment to keep things organized. 

Reminder on the ask: To create a search field which takes comma separate keywords and return Name OR Description fields that contain any of those keywords.