Sifter - a flexible string-based query filtering library for Ecto

News Announcing
,
1

Sifter is a a query filtering library for Ecto.

It lets frontend apps send human-readable query strings like:

"elixir phoenix status:published OR (draft author:me) createdAt:>=2024-01-01"

and turns them into safe, validated Ecto queries with full-text search support.

Key Features

  • Rich query syntax: field predicates, boolean logic, IN/NOT IN, wildcards, lists.
  • Full-text search: supports :ilike or PostgreSQL tsquery.
  • Field allow-lists: keep filtering secure with schema-aware whitelisting.
  • Friendly errors: lexer/parser messages with positions.
  • SQL inspection: Sifter.to_sql/4 for debugging and testing.

Example

{query, meta} = Sifter.filter!(Post, params["q"],
  schema: Post,
  allowed_fields: ["status", "priority", "author.name"],
  search_fields: ["title", "content"],
  search_strategy: {:tsquery, "english"}
)

posts = Repo.all(query)
IO.inspect(meta)
# %{uses_full_text?: true, recommended_order: [search_rank: :desc]}

GitHub Repo:

https://github.com/typhoonworks/sifter

6 Likes
2

Hi, nice library. Do you have any doc or formal reference for this query format? Is this query format used anywhere else?

3

Hi, thanks!

The grammar for the query is captured in the Lexer docs:

As for wether it is used elsewhere, I don’t think so. I implemented something similar in a previous job and at that time I drew heavily from Shopify’s search query sintax: Shopify API search syntax

So that’s likely the closest to this format that’s in use out there :slight_smile:

1 Like