Full-text query filter matches the whole query per field, so a multi-word search across fields finds nothing

[jonasnobile]

Problem

createFullTextFilterHandler (packages/bindx/src/dataview/filterHandlers.ts, v0.1.53) turns the DataGrid search box into one condition per searchable field, each with the whole query:

const conditions = fieldPaths.map(fieldPath => buildNestedWhere(fieldPath, buildTextCondition(artifact.mode, artifact.query)))
return { or: conditions }

So a query of several words only matches when one field contains all of them, in that order. Typical searches that therefore return nothing:

• Jan Novák on a contact grid searching firstName and lastName
• Alza Praha on a company grid searching name and city
• Novák Instagram where the words sit in the row and in a related record

Users type these all the time (first name plus surname above all) and read the empty result as "the search is broken".

Proposal

In contains mode, split the query on whitespace and require every word to match some field:

const words = artifact.query.trim().split(/\s+/).filter(Boolean)
// { and: words.map(word => ({ or: fieldPaths.map(path => buildNestedWhere(path, { containsCI: word })) })) }

• one word gives exactly today's { or: [...] }, so single-word searches are unchanged
• word order does not matter (Novák Jan works too)
• the other modes (startsWith, endsWith, equals, notContains) keep matching the whole query, since splitting changes their meaning
• SelectDataView uses the same handler, so select pickers would benefit as well

Context

Found in a CRM on bindx 0.1.52 (list search over contacts and companies). We carry this change as a local bun patch of @contember/bindx until it lands upstream.

[jonasnobile]

Two details we added while carrying this as a patch: cap the split at 5 words (a pasted address or sentence would otherwise grow the where by words x fields), and dedupe fieldPaths first, since a field can be registered both by a text column and by a search-only leaf and then gets a redundant OR branch per word.

[jonasnobile]

One more: with the split, a whitespace-only query builds no condition, so isActive should check query.trim().length > 0. Otherwise the grid shows the search as an active filter (and persists it) while filtering nothing.

[jonasnobile]

Two more from carrying the patch: a double-quoted part stays one term ("777 123 456", for phone numbers and other values with spaces; an unclosed quote runs to the end), and paths sharing a relation prefix are merged into one condition on that relation ({ contacts: { or: [...] } }), which returns the same rows with one subquery per relation instead of one per path. We also export the tokenizer and the term cap so a UI can say when words were dropped.