3. Your First JCR Query
Welcome to the exciting part of our Magnolia JCR tutorial - creating and executing your very first query. This step is crucial to understand how to interact with JCR in Magnolia. By the end of this section, you will have a good understanding of how to formulate basic queries. Let's go!
A JCR query in SQL2 syntax typically follows this basic structure:
SELECT [what to select] FROM [node type] WHERE [condition]This query does the following:
- SELECT Clause
Specifies what you want to retrieve. It can be a specific property (propertyName), all properties (*), or a combination of properties. - FROM Clause
Specifies the node type you're querying. In Magnolia, common node types include mgnl:page, mgnl:content, etc. - WHERE Clause
Specifies conditions to filter the nodes. This can include path conditions, property values, etc.
Let's write a basic query to select all the top-level pages of your website:
SELECT * FROM [mgnl:page] WHERE ISDESCENDANTNODE('/website')This query does the following:
- SELECT *
This selects all properties of the nodes. - FROM [mgnl:page]
You're querying nodes of type mgnl:page, which typically represent pages in Magnolia. - WHERE ISDESCENDANTNODE('/website')
This filters the results so that they only contain pages under the path "/website", which in this case is the root directory for the website content. Your Magnolia installation may of course have a different root path.
-
Enter the Query
Type or paste your query into the Query Input Area. -
Execute the Query
Click on the 'Execute' or 'Run' button. -
View the Results
The Results Display area will show the pages that match your query. If you've just started with Magnolia, there might be only a few pages or even none, depending on your setup.
Example Query
Let's put this together in an more complex example query:
SELECT title, created FROM [mgnl:page]
WHERE ISDESCENDANTNODE('/website') AND author = 'Max Muster'
ORDER BY created DESC
This query does the following:
- Selects the title and created date of pages.
- From nodes of type mgnl:page.
- That are under the '/website' path.
- Where the author property is 'Max Muster'.
- Orders the results by creation date in descending order
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