Tag search (comparing two lists) without using advanced filter intersect >0?

PhastCo · 2024-07-20T07:33:42.921Z

Back with the tag searching function again. App needs to return content (containing list of tags) that matches a profiles list of tags. The only solution is to do advanced filter intersect > 0. I was wondering if a better solution was created now?

Thanks in advance!

adamhholmes · 2024-07-20T07:54:17.485Z

What is the exact use-case?

I’m guessing you have a list field on your data type?

A better solution will likely be to not use a list field. Use a separate object-tag datatype instead.

codefree · 2024-07-20T08:04:38.004Z

@PhastCo

Can you try comparing two lists using regex expression?

// Define the lists
let list1 = ["tag1", "tag2", "tag3", "tag4"];
let list2 = ["tag1", "tag4"];

// Create a single regex pattern from list2
let pattern = new RegExp(`^(${list2.join("|")})$`);

// Filter list1 to find elements that match the pattern
let matchingTags = list1.filter(tag => pattern.test(tag));

console.log(matchingTags); // Output: ["tag1", "tag4"]

You might need to tweak the regex expression for you use case and make it compatible to bubble.

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Not 100% sure if this can work for you. Let me know.

PhastCo · 2024-07-20T08:19:15.721Z

Hi @adamhholmes, thanks for the reply!

Yep, Tag is an object by itself.

Here’s a simplified structure:
Object “Profile” contains a data-field list of “Tags”
Object “Content” contains a data field list of “Tags”

The goal is to return Content which matches with the current user’s profile interests (which is basically a list of “Tags”) . Interesct > 0 serves the purposes, although through all these years I was wondering if a better solution has come up

PhastCo · 2024-07-20T08:22:35.458Z

Hey @codefree! Thanks for the reply, certainly an intesting solution which based on your posts should serve the purpose. I’ll have a test later on.

Are you aware if Bubble handles exract with Regex is on the client side or server side? Otherwise it would face the same issue with advanced filter. Thanks for the answer!

codefree · 2024-07-20T08:25:12.893Z

It can run on client and server side, depends on where are you implementing it.
Workflow Tab: Client Side
API Workflow: Server Side

Comparing with Advanced filter this might be computational efficient.

rico.trevisan · 2024-07-20T09:23:04.628Z

Maybe you tried this already:
Do a search for Content
Where tags contains User’s Tags?

Is that not server side?
Does that match any tag and you want to match all tags?

PhastCo · 2024-07-20T10:18:09.838Z

Hey @rico.trevisan, that would be server sided, but contains is used to compare a single item vs. a list. The required use case is comparing two lists which unfortunately doesn’t work with the contains function

rico.trevisan · 2024-07-20T11:06:16.092Z

PhastCo:

contains is used to compare a single item vs. a list

You’ve piqued my interest; and/or I don’t understand your use case. Could you share your db’s setup for Content and User?

I use this in a few parts of my app to return a list of Questions where the Question Tag contains a list of Tags (coming from the Multidropdown element).

adamhholmes · 2024-07-20T12:52:47.090Z

Yes, the Tag is an object itself… that’s not what I meant (that’s a given).

You also need an object-tag datatype - in your case a content-tag datatype (don’t use a list field on the content datatype).

Then just do a search for content-tags, whose tag is in the defined list of tags, grouped by content, each item’s content.

That will give you all the ‘content’ items who have at least one tag in the defined list of tags, and is all done directly on the database query itself.

PhastCo · 2024-08-04T09:04:05.325Z

Hey Rico:
Here’s a simplified version of the DB:

Data Types:

Content
Tag
User

Content’s Data fields

List of Tags

User’s data fields

List of Tags

The requirement:
Returning all Contents with Tags that match User’s Tags

Please let me know if that makes sense!

PhastCo · 2024-08-04T09:07:08.070Z

Thanks for the reply @adamhholmes. I believe I see what you’re saying. Let me know if this would be correct for you scenario:

If I had 20K records of Content & 10K Tags. The Object-Tag (in this case Content-Tag) would need 20M records?

Please let me know if I’m understanding you correctly.

boston85719 · 2024-08-04T09:19:46.554Z

Could try this approach

Bubble DB Challenge - Searching By Tags Questions

I don’t know if this breaks the rules or not. In the tags data type create 3 fields, each is list of text that represent the Unique ID of the Content data type that has the tag. One field for the First 5K Content UID, one field for the Second 5K Content UID and one field for Third 5K Content UID. On Content Type have a field that is a text that is not a list, but stores the tags as a single text with separated values (ie: tag1, tag2, tag3 etc.) One page create an RG (hidden from users view) t…

adamhholmes · 2024-08-04T09:27:54.401Z

PhastCo:

If I had 20K records of Content & 10K Tags. The Object-Tag (in this case Content-Tag) would need 20M records?

Well, if every piece of content has 1000 tags then yes, that will be 20m records.

But in any case, I’ve been doing a lot of testing on this very subject lately and, unfortunately, it turns out there really isn’t any way to do this with Bubble’s database (the method I mentioned above works great in standard SQL - but it unusably slow in Bubble beyond a few thousand records).

The only way you can do this in a performant, efficient, and scalable way in Bubble is to restrict the number of selectable tags, and then use a number merged searches (one of each Tag).

PhastCo · 2024-08-05T04:44:30.491Z

I agree, that sounds like the most sensible solution. Will be looking to migrate our backend to Xano in the future if our app scales further - speed & WU usage would really be a concern in this case