bqpjs v0.1.1
Boolean Query Parser JS
Transform a Boolean query string into a tokenized tree or RPN data structure.
let parsed = bqpjs('A AND B')
Install
npm install bqpjs
Features and API may not be stable until a 1.x.x release. You may wish to use --save-exact
to avoid installing breaking changes in the future.
Features
Syntax
BQPJS supports the following Boolean search syntax:
- AND
A AND B
- AND is the default operator, so
A B
equalsA AND B
- OR
A OR B
- NOT
NOT B
A NOT B
- Quotations
- Must be
"
"A B" OR A OR B
A B
is treated as a single term.
"A AND B" OR A OR B
A AND B
is treated as a single term.AND
is not evaluated as an operator.- Anything inside quotations will be treated as a single term
- Must be
- Parentheses
(A OR B) AND (C OR D)
- Nested parentheses
(C AND (A OR B)) NOT D
Order of operations
Queries will be evaluated in the following order in the absence of parenthesis: 1. NOT 2. AND 3. OR
Alternate operator characters
The following short tokens are supported:
Operator | Name | Character | Example |
---|---|---|---|
AND | Plus sign | + | A + B |
OR | Tilde | ~ | A ~ B |
NOT | Minus sign | - | A + B - C |
Operators and alternates can be mixed:
A + B AND C
A AND B -D
Validation
Incorrectly formatted search strings will trigger an error to be thrown.
Input: 'A OR OR C'
Output: Error: Invalid token "OR" at position 5
White-space
White-space is ignored.
AANDB
is interpreted asA AND B
- 'A AND B' is interpreted as
A AND B
Tokenized data structure results
The search string input is transformed into objects of the following structure:
{
"value": String,
"type": String,
"operation": String,
"position": {
"start": Number,
"end": Number
},
"left": null or Token, // tree only
"right": null or Token // tree only
}
Key | Description |
---|---|
value | A value from the input string represented by this token. |
type | Either term or operator |
operation | Identifies operator. Only present if type is operator . Will be AND , OR or NOT |
position.start | Zero indexed location of the start of the value in the input string |
position.end | Zero indexed location of the end of the value in the input string |
left | Operand token. Tree only |
right | Operand token. Tree only |
See Example section below for data structures with actual values.
How it works
The input string is parsed to find known patterns. These matches are then assigned type, operation, and position as appropriate to create tokens, quotations are converted to terms, white-space is removed, and the token sequence is validated. Next, an implementation of Dijkstra's Shunting Yard algorithm is used to re-order the tokens in reverse polish notation with parentheses removed. Finally, an expression tree is generated with operations as nodes and terms as leafs.
Example
See /examples for scripts demonstrating how to use bqpjs().
Input
let parsed = bqpjs('A AND B')
Output
Both rpn
and tree
are a complete representation of the input.
{
rpn: [{
"value": "A",
"type": "term",
"position": {
"start": 0,
"end": 0
}
},
{
"value": "B",
"type": "term",
"position": {
"start": 6,
"end": 6
}
},
{
"value": "AND",
"type": "operator",
"operation": "AND",
"position": {
"start": 2,
"end": 4
}
}],
tree: {
"value": "AND",
"type": "operator",
"operation": "AND",
"position": {
"start": 2,
"end": 4
},
"left": {
"value": "A",
"type": "term",
"position": {
"start": 0,
"end": 0
},
"left": null,
"right": null
},
"right": {
"value": "B",
"type": "term",
"position": {
"start": 6,
"end": 6
},
"left": null,
"right": null
}
}
}