Filtering using the Pagefind JavaScript API

Pagefind’s JavaScript API supports filtering your content, either as part of a search or as a standalone action. This is often useful when using Pagefind for a knowledge base or large blog, where filtering by categories or tags might be the primary action.

#Fetching the available filters

To load the available filters, run:

const filters = await pagefind.filters();

Filters are not initialized by default, so this function call will load the required filtering files from the index.

This function returns an object of the following structure, showing the number of total results available under each filter: value combination.

{
    "tag": {
        "Documentation": 4,
        "Article": 12
    },
    "author": {
        "CloudCannon": 6,
        "Liam Bigelow": 12,
        "Pagefind": 1
    }
}

#Filtering as part of a search

To filter results alongside searching, pass an options object containing filters to the search function:

const search = await pagefind.search(
    "static",
    {
        filters: { author: "CloudCannon" }
    }
);

This example will return all pages:

• With search hits for the word static
• With author filters associated, where one of the authors is exactly CloudCannon

#Filtering as a standalone action

To filter results without searching, pass a search term of null to the search function:

const search = await pagefind.search(
    null,
    {
        filters: { author: "CloudCannon" }
    }
);

This example will return all pages with author filters associated, where one of the authors is exactly CloudCannon.

#Getting the remaining results available for each filter

If all filters have been loaded with await pagefind.filters(), counts will also be returned alongside each search, detailing the number of remaining items for each filter value.

{
    "results": [
        {
            "id": "6fceec9",
            "data": async function data(),
        }
    ],
    "unfilteredResultCount": 100,
    "filters": {
        "tag": {
            "Documentation": 1,
            "Article": 0
        },
        "author": {
            "CloudCannon": 4,
            "Liam Bigelow": 0,
            "Pagefind": 2
        }
    },
    "totalFilters": {
        "tag": {
            "Documentation": 4,
            "Article": 2
        },
        "author": {
            "CloudCannon": 4,
            "Liam Bigelow": 10,
            "Pagefind": 2
        }
    }
}

• The filters key contains the number of results if a given filter were to be applied in addition to the current filters.
• The totalFilters key contains the number of results if a given filter were to be applied instead of the current filters.
• The unfilteredResultCount key details the number of results for the search term alone, if no filters had been applied.

#Using compound filters

When unspecified, all filtering defaults to “AND” filtering. This means that pages must match every filter provided. For example:

const search = await pagefind.search("static", {
    filters: {
        author: ["CloudCannon", "Pagefind"],
        tag: "Article"
    },
});

This query will only match pages that have a tag of Article, and are authored by both CloudCannon, and Pagefind.

This behavior can be customized by using the keyword any, all, none, and not in your filtering options:

• all will match if every nested condition matches. Untagged conditions will default to all.
• not is the opposite of all and will match unless every nested condition matches.
• any will match if one or more of the nested conditions match.
• none is the opposite of any and will match unless one or more of the nested conditions match.

The syntax for filtering is very flexible, and these keywords may be nested within each other, and within arrays or objects.

#Examples:

const search = await pagefind.search("static", {
    filters: {
        author: {
            any: ["CloudCannon", "Pagefind"]
        },
        tag: "Article"
    },
});

Matches pages with a tag of Article, with an author of either CloudCannon or Pagefind.

const search = await pagefind.search("static", {
    filters: {
        any: {
            author: ["CloudCannon", "Pagefind"],
            tag: "Article"
        }
    },
});

Matches pages with a tag of Article, or pages authored by both CloudCannon and Pagefind.

const search = await pagefind.search("static", {
    filters: {
        any: [{
            author: "Pagefind",
            tag: "Article"
        }, {
            author: "CloudCannon",
            tag: "Documentation"
        }],
        not: {
            year: "2018"
        }
    },
});

Matches pages that are authored by Pagefind with a tag of Article, or pages authored by CloudCannon with a tag of Documentation, but does not match any of those pages if they have a year of 2018.

To dive deeper into complex filtering, see the compound_filtering test files in Pagefind’s GitHub repository.