CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Using the Search Builder to search certain string fields breaks it.

The fields that break the Search Builder include City, Email and Postal Code. When a '=' or 'LIKE' search is performed on any of these fields, the string literal being searched for is not quoted in generated query, which causes an SQL syntax error. Instead of a search results page, the user gets an error page which says "Sorry. A non-recoverable error has occurred." and "DB Error: syntax error".

Putting single or double quotes around the value being searched for does not work as the Search Builder prevents the value from being quoted by automatically escaping the quotes with backslashes. The result is the same - an unquoted string literal in the generated query that causes a fatal SQL syntax error.

This error can be recreated on the Drupal 7 CiviCRM 4.1 demo site:
http://drupal.demo.civicrm.org/civicrm/contact/search/builder
Just go to the Search Builder, select record type Individual, select the field City, select the operator '=' and enter 'London' in the value box (quoted or unquoted) and then click the Search button.

The error does not occur with all string fields. For example, it does not occur when searching on First Name or Display Name. The Search Builder allows values to be quoted for those fields.

The search builder code is currently on "life support" and is not being maintained actively. Yes, we do agree it is quite important and cool and needed, but we dont have the time/energy/resources to maintain it.

If you are interested in being the maintainer, fix bugs and add more features please ping us on IRC and we can help you get started

lobo

Great, thanks, I'll look forward to that. Sorry I didn't have time to work on it myself.