18. File Search API

• Status: proposed
• Deciders: @butonic, @micbar, @dragotin, @c0rby
• Date: 2022-03-18

The ability to find files based on certain search terms is a key requirement for a system that provides the ability to store unstructured data on a large scale.

• Have a simple yet powerful, scalable and performant way of finding files in oCIS
• Be able to construct intelligent searches based on metadata
• Allow the user to filter the search queries based on metadata

• Libre Graph API
• WebDAV API

Chosen option: WebDAV API because the current WebUI is compatible with that API. We may use the GraphAPI later in a second iteration.

• The existing Clients can continue to use the well-known API
• There are existing API tests which cover the basic behavior

• We have no server side result filtering capabilities

• Good, because we try to switch most of our HTTP requests to Libre Graph
• Good, because the Graph API supports scopes, sorting and query language
• Good, because it supports server side result filtering
• Bad, because there are currently no clients which support that

• Good, because WebDAV is a well-known and widely adopted Standard
• Good, because existing Clients continue to work without extra efforts
• Bad, because the syntax is limited
• Bad, because we cannot do server side result filtering

• Search Indexing
• Search Query Language