Difficult search ??

[belgiumbruno]

Hi,

I wonder how I can find this kind of things

suppose I have 3 fields

1- color

2- cars

3- price

now I want to find all red,blue and grey BMW - Ford cars in stock

with a price between 10000$ and 40000$

I want as less as possible requests.

[danjacoby]

6 requests.

Price range is the same in all 6

3 requests for BMWs, one for each color.

3 requests for Fords, one for each color.

There are complex ways to do this, including setting up global fields so you can create a multiple search through a script, but it would take a lot of work to set up. If you're going to be doing a lot of multiple searches like this, you might want to do the work; otherwise, just set up multiple search requests manually.

[belgiumbruno]

Thanks for your reply.

But this was just a simple search.

I have to work with at least 5 combinations.

But now I am absolutely sure that there is no simple solution to find such things.

[danjacoby]

It's not a simple search, it's a combination search. You're searching based on six different sets of parameters.

The reason computers haven't achieved artificial intelligence is that the things we come to think of as simple, are in reality very complex -- like your search. I have had to explain to many clients just how computers work in order for them to understand why some things they "just want to do -- it's simple" require very complex programming. Once you get the hang of the logic on which computers operate, it's a lot easier to tell "simple" from "complicated". Hang in there.