Optionnal parameter added to return all objects for a blank search

[ppython]

I need to be able to return all results even if the query is blank.

This patch adds an optional bool parameter 'blank_search_results' to search(). When set to True, it will return all the objects.

Ex. of usage:

from watson import search as watson

query = ''

# Will return all Watson registered models objects.
search_results = watson.search(query, blank_search_results=True)

# Will return all Your_models objects.
search_results = watson.filter(Your_model, query, blank_search_results=True)

[etianen]

Thanks for the pull request!

This sounds like something that can be trivially implemented in your own code, without requiring a change to django-watson. What advantage is there in adding this parameter to django-watson?

[ppython]

Sure,

Some exemples, the first one being the one for my case:

• In nowadays web development, one might want to have a page or section of his site dedicated to search the whole platform at once (catalog for some others, ...).
• One might want to index dynamic categories, such a category could have 0 content and we would like to show a section/bloc of related (category) search items.
• One last, off the top of the mind: A page, such as the one described in the first example, could be regularly indexed (with SEO and the urls structures as an important aspect of it): it's good that the default (or 'landing') page offers a listing in the same fashion than the search result-page.

Now, I could have my own django-watson custom SearchEngine Class and override it's search method to achieve what I need; or might even not use watson and pass by Django ORM directly (or in the same override as well, wich would simplifies the code on the search end) with it's filters; I needed a start in achieving this 'blank query' thing and thought this would be one more little thing watson could achieve :)

[etianen]

I think you can do this much more simply in your own code:

if query == "":
    return SearchEntry.objects.all()
else:
    return watson.search(query)

Given how simple the logic is, I struggle to see the benefit of adding it to django-watson.

[ppython]

Exact, this simple case make the modification to the package useless :)

Just to add if someones stumble upon this; If we want to do it per model:

from django.contrib.contenttypes.models import ContentType
SearchEntry.objects.filter(content_type=ContentType.objects.get_for_model(Your_model))

I'll close this PR, thanks for the discussion anyway!

[etianen]

Cool, this will be nice documentation if anyone else has the same issue. Thanks, Google! :P

Happy coding! 😄