How to do this complex search query in flask? - flask

Question

I'm trying to implement an 'advanced search', but I'll keep it a bit simpler for the sake of this question.
How it works so far:
#app.route('/advanced_search', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
def advanced_search():
form = AdvancedProductSearch() # this is a SelectMultipleField
countries = ['Canada', 'France', 'Mexico', 'Nigeria']
form.categories.choices = [(c,c) for c in countries]
if form.validate_on_submit():
countrydata = form.countries.data
res = models.Product.query.filter(models.Product.country.in_(countrydata)).all()
# Now I have my search results, what do I do with them?
return render_template('advanced_search.html', title='Advanced Search', form=form)
My plan was to have to have another view: advanced_search_results, which should be used for rendering the results, but I don't know how it should work.
#app.route('/advanced_search_results', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
def advanced_search_results(query):
#what to do?
return render_template('advanced_search_results.html', title='Search Results')
I can think of two ways of proceeding:
1) Somehow pass all the rows of data in res to the advanced_search_results() view, but I don't see how I can do that.
2) Use a redirect to pass the desired search query to advanced_search_results() and do the db search there. I'm also not sure how to go about this.

Answer 1

Simply return the necessary view:
res = models.Product.query.filter(models.Product.country.in_(countrydata)).all()
# Now I have my search results, let's send them back
return render_template('advanced_search_results.html', title='Results',
results=res)
Then, in your view you can loop over the results as you would for any other list of models:
{% for result in results %}
{{ result.name }}<br>
{{ result.country }}<br>
<hr noshade>
{% endfor %}
Alternatively, if you want to host it at another URL, just change the action of the form on the advanced-search page to point at advanced-search-results:
<form action="/advanced_search_results" method="post">
{# etc ... #}
</form>
then you can validate the search and either display the results or redirect the user with an error message:
#app.route('/advanced_search_results', methods=['POST'])
def advanced_search_results():
form = AdvancedProductSearch()
countries = ['Canada', 'France', 'Mexico', 'Nigeria']
form.categories.choices = [(c,c) for c in countries]
if not form.validate_on_submit():
flash("There were errors with your submission")
return redirect(url_for('advanced_search'))
countrydata = form.countries.data
res = models.Product.query.filter(models.Product.country.in_(countrydata)).all()
return render_template('advanced_search_results.html',
title='Search Results',
results=res)
This makes your advanced_search method simpler:
#app.route('/advanced_search', methods=['GET'])
def advanced_search():
form = AdvancedProductSearch() # this is a SelectMultipleField
countries = ['Canada', 'France', 'Mexico', 'Nigeria']
form.categories.choices = [(c,c) for c in countries]
return render_template('advanced_search.html', title='Advanced Search', form=form)