EOQualifier qual = EOQualifier.qualifierWithQualifierFormat 
  (formatString, args);

 
EOQualifier qual; 
qual = [EOQualifier qualifierWithQualifierFormat: 
  formatString, arg1, arg2, ... ]

Building a qualifier (Java)

 
String searchTitle;     // Assume this exists 
Integer searchRevenue;  // Assume this exists 
 
String wildTitle = searchTitle + "*"; 
EOQualifier myQualifier; 
NSArray args = new NSArray(new Object[] {wildTitle,"revenue",searchRevenue}); 
myQualifier = EOQualifier.qualifierWithQualifierFormat 
    ("title caseInsensitiveLike %@ AND %@ < %@", args); 

Building a qualifier (Objective-C)

 
NSString searchTitle;   // Assume this exists 
int searchRevenue;      // Assume this exists 
 
NSString wildTitle; 
EOQualifier myQualifier; 
 
wildTitle = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@*",searchTitle]; 
myQualifier = [EOQualifier qualifierWithQualifierFormat 
    @"title caseInsensitiveLike %@ AND %@ < %d", 
    wildTitle,@"revenue",searchRevenue]; 

Note that in Objective-C, the %d , %f , and %s printf() formats are supported in addition to %@ .

String literals are expressed in single quotes. However, the %@ conversion specification is never surrounded by single quotes.

 
// For a literal string value such as Smith, you use single quotes. 
EOQualifier.qualifierWithQualifierFormat("lastName = 'Smith'", null); 
 
// For the conversion specification %@, you don't use quotes 
args = NSMutableArray("Jones"); 
EOQualifier.qualifierWithQualifierFormat("lastName = %@", args);

The operators you can use in constructing qualifiers are = , == , <> , < , > , <= , >= , like , and caseInsensitiveLike . The like and caseInsensitiveLike operators can be used with wildcards to perform pattern matching, as described below.

Using Wildcards and the like Operator

When you use the like or caseInsensitiveLike operator in a qualifier expression, you can use the wildcard characters * and ? to perform pattern matching, for example:

 
"lastName like 'Jo*'"

matches Jones, Johnson, Jolsen, Josephs, and so on.

The ? character just matches a single character, for example:

 
"lastName like 'Jone?'"

matches Jones.

The asterisk character ( * ) is only interpreted as a wildcard in expressions that use the like or caseInsensitiveLike operator. For example, in the following statement, the character * is treated as a literal value, not as a wildcard:

 
"lastName = 'Jo*'"

Note that when you combine wildcards with the %@ conversion specification, you must put the wildcard in the argument and not the conversion:

 
// CORRECT: 
keyword = "Jo"; 
NSArray args = new NSArray (keyword+"*"); 
EOQualifier myQualifier = EOQualifier.qualifierWithQualifierFormat 
    ("lastName like %@",args);

The following code won't work:

 
// WRONG: 
keyword = "Jo"; 
NSArray args = new NSArray (keyword); 
EOQualifier myQualifier = EOQualifier.qualifierWithQualifierFormat 
    ("lastName like %@*",args);

Joining Qualifiers

The EOAndQualifier and EOOrQualifier subclasses of EOQualifier can be used to form boolean combinations of qualifiers. For example, the EOAndQualifier is itself a qualifier that is the logical AND of its constituent qualifiers. In the following code, myQualifier1 is equivalent to myQualifier2 .

 
NSMutableArray args = new NSMutableArray(); 
args.addObject(EOQualifier.qualifierWithQualifierFormat 
    ("title like 'S*'")); 
args.addObject(EOQualifier.qualifierWithQualifierFormat 
    ("revenue > 500000")); 
EOAndQualifier myQualifier1 = EOAndQualifier(args); 
 
EOQualifier myQualifier2 = EOQualifier.qualifierWithQualifierFormat 
    ("title like 'S*' AND revenue > 500000");

The EONotQualifier forms the logical NOT of its constituent qualifier and can be used with EOAndQualifier and EOOrQualifier to form complex boolean qualifiers.

Using the boolean EOQualifier subclasses is often more convenient than using qualifierWithQualifierFormat when forming qualifiers by iterating over enumerated objects. An example is building keyword searches. The following code example builds a qualifier based on an NSArray of keywords. The qualifier filters the Movies database for all Talents that have all of the keywords in their names, the movie roles they star in, or the movies they star in.

 
NSArray keywords;   // Assume exists 
NSMutableArray qualifierArray = new NSMutableArray(); 
Enumeration e = keywords.objectEnumerator(); 
while (e.hasMoreElements()) { 
    String kw = e.nextElement(); 
    kw = "*" + kw + "*"; 
    String qualifierString = 
        "firstName caseInsensitiveLike %@ OR " + 
        "lastName caseInsensitiveLike %@ OR " + 
        "toMovieRole.roleName caseInsensitiveLike %@ OR " + 
        "toMovieRole.toMovie.title caseInsensitiveLike %@"; 
    EOQualifier tempQualifier = EOQualifier.qualifierWithQualifierFormat 
        (qualifierString,new NSArray (new Object[] {kw,kw,kw,kw})); 
    qualifierArray.addObject (tempQualifier); 
} 
EOQualifier qualifier = new EOAndQualifier(qualifierArray);