Inconsistent results from Multi-category Search

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bbbitt
Posts: 1
Joined: 05 Oct 2022 02:54

Inconsistent results from Multi-category Search

Post by bbbitt »

I am looking for ATTB Renaissance music for a class I teach. I tried two multi-category searches more or less successfully (everything had "ATTB" in it, but wasn't necessarily ATTB).
1) Sacred by season/Christmas, 4 voice/ATTB, Renaissance returned 10 results
2) Secular, 4 voice/ATTB, Renaissance returned 168 results

I asked one of my students to look at the 10 pieces from Query 1 and his computer returned
'no results", and when he did query 2 he got "Displaying 200 results, out of 2376 total", I have't looked at all of these but the ones I looked at were 4 voice, but not ATTB.

I have since replicated both his results and mine on my computer in two different browsers. I have run a number of tests, and copied the urls after the "Run Query" command. I am getting some concatenation of commands from previous queries, but not consistent. This may not be the problem depending on whether the extra stuff at the end is processed. However, if it is then this problem could be like
https://forums.cpdl.org/phpBB3/viewtopi ... =9&t=13376
where sacred and secular are both being searched. But I was careful to never have the boxes or the sub-boxes checked at the same time. The overlap is in the command line, but is coming from some old data stored somewhere (but clearly from my queries).

I have tried the tests with only one cpdl tab and with updated browsers to try to avoid cross contamination. Multi-category search has worked well and consistently for me in the past, so I assume something has changed recently. Any thoughts on how to set up these queries to get the right results would be appreciated. Right now it seems to be randomly one of the two results above.
CHGiffen
Site Admin
Posts: 1781
Joined: 16 Sep 2005 21:22
Location: Hudson, Wisconsin, USA

Re: Inconsistent results from Multi-category Search

Post by CHGiffen »

For (1) I got 10 results.
For (2) I got 168 results.
On a lark, I selected 4-part but did not select ATTB for (2) and got 2377 results.

The extra work i these last two cases is probably due to a new work being added since the above trials were run.

It's likely that for (2) your student inadvertently did not select ATTB, but only selected 4-part.

Not sure what the student did to get no results for (1) -- perhaps accidentally chose two mutually exclusive genres?
Charles H. Giffen
CPDL Board of Directors Chair
Admin at & Manager of ChoralWiki
Richard Mix
Posts: 182
Joined: 31 Jan 2010 04:51

Re: Inconsistent results from Multi-category Search

Post by Richard Mix »

Interesting: I just searched for ATTB + a cappella and got 748 pieces, almost all of them Renaissance! ATTB + Renaissance gets 621 hits, narrowed to 10 with Christmas (adding Advent/Epiphany narrows even more). For ATTB + A cappella + secular I get 260.
vaarky
Moderator
Posts: 2163
Joined: 22 Aug 2008 07:28

Re: Inconsistent results from Multi-category Search

Post by vaarky »

A search using it on the term Mundy specifying Latin, Renaissance and 7-part pieces yields only 1 composition, the 7-part Memor Esto. Clicking to ADD 5-part while KEEPING 7-part yields only the 7-part Memo Esto, though there are indeed 5-part pieces it should list. Limiting that search to 5-part pieces only properly yields 10 pieces and excludes the 7-part Memor Esto.
Richard Mix
Posts: 182
Joined: 31 Jan 2010 04:51

Re: Inconsistent results from Multi-category Search

Post by Richard Mix »

I don't very well understand Special pages, which have no history or discussion pages. It might be nice to at least have a Help:Multi-Category Search (or per Chuck's capitalization guideline Help:Multi-category search).

"The more categories you select, the narrower the search will be" is a clue that boolean 'or' is unavailable, but when I rerun my search for Eucharistic songs + Solo vocal music + Choral solo music as two searches, I still get zero.
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