245272 - Add per-chart negation to boolean searches

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Bugzilla :: Query/Bug List, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Joel Peshkin]

Once boolean charts are fixed so that joins to attachments, CC, etc... are does
correctly as LEFT JOINs, it becomes possible to add a "NOT" checkbox (one per
boolean chart) that negates the entire boolean chart.  

This makes it possible to find bugs where there is no comment made by someone
who matches "justdave" and whose domain is "@bugzilla.org"

Comment 1

[Joel Peshkin]

Before I start to implement this, we need to validate a key change in the way
that Search.pm works....

I believe that it is true that sql servers, mysql in particular, know that
LEFT JOIN bugs_activity ON <criteria> WHERE bugs.activity.<something> IS NOT NULL

can be processed as

, bugs_activity WHERE <criteria>

the reason this is important is the first can be negate correctly as ...
LEFT JOIN bugs_activity ON <criteria> WHERE NOT(bugs.activity.<something> IS NOT
NULL)

while the second cannot be

It seems that mysql 4.0.14 and on do this optimization.  It is not clear where
this comes in on the mysql 3 family.
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/LEFT_JOIN_optimisation.html

One key point in considering the merits of this....  the queries that would be
affected by this are not the ones that get done by most users.  This would
effect only pretty advanced queries that are probably a tiny fraction of the total.

Comment 2

[Joel Peshkin]

Actually, most of the cases where this matters already do this correctly.  The
activity log cases are broken and need to be fixed, but that is independent of
this bug.

Comment 3

[Joel Peshkin]

Attachment: Patch - implements negation

This makes boolean charts negate so you can search for a bug on which justdave
is not on the cc list, etc..

This really can't break anything, but the actual negation cases need to be
checked out carefully.	I suspect that the types of queries that people attempt
once negation is available will expose some bugs in Search.pm that have gone
unreported until now.

Comment 4

[Joel Peshkin]

*** Bug 40966 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5

[Joel Peshkin]

*** Bug 139771 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

Comment on attachment 153099 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch - implements negation

Back end seems to work nicely - does what it says. :)

I'm not sure about the UI...  checkbox is best, I'm just not sure if the
wording would confuse people too much.

Comment 7

[timeless]

Comment on attachment 153099 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch - implements negation

we need some boolean chart documention/examples, but not seems fine with me

Comment 8

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

Comment on attachment 153099 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch - implements negation

The UI for this looks bad, but the better ones I can think of all require
larger modifications to the boolean charts UI that are out of the scope of this
bug. r=myk

Comment 9

[Joel Peshkin]

checked in - fixed filter violation on checkin

Comment 10

[Joel Peshkin]

*** Bug 188829 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 11

[Frédéric Buclin]

The documentation about boolean charts, including negation, has been added in bug 281185.