[ic] [value-extended] not passing through [more] pages

John Young interchange-users@icdevgroup.org
Fri Oct 25 15:13:01 2002


Thanh Luong asked:

> I am having problems getting my
> [value-extended name=mv_searchspec joiner="|"]
> to pass through to my more pages
> I added the above code to the top of my results
> page(foundation catalog)
> I run a search for tools and at the top of page it
> shows up as tools 
> 1|tools
> then when I click a [more] link at the bottom it turns
> into a scalar value. always the same scalar value. I
> tried this on 3 different catalogs. the first catalog
> always returned 6. the second always returned 1012 and
> the third which was the demo catalog at icdevgroup
> always returned 9.
> 
> Is there a way to retain my values for value-extended
> after a more page is clicked.

One way is to pass the search criteria/variables from
one page to the next via CGI variables or scratch
variables.  CGI variables will just go back and forth
with the HTTP traffic, while scratch variables will be
stored in the users' session.  I prefer CGI variables in
this case.

Essentially, think about it like this:
* User performs search
   - search vars are in session retrievable via [value-extended]
       and other methods
   - the entire search results are saved in a file in /tmp.
* User selects next page from the [more-list]
   - Range of results (according to mv_matchlimit, default
       being 50) is taken from the file that is in /tmp.

You can see the above in the link for the more-list - 
basically a long filename and a range of results (like 50:99).
As far as Interchange is concerned, that's no longer a
search like you did before, but simply reading a range
of stuff from a file... hence one not being able to rely
on [value-extended] reading searchspec from the session
data.

So, by preserving the original search variables yourself,
you can then call on them within your "more" pages, and
do what you like...

Good luck,
John Young