search:field_name= and special characters

Question

I have a client site who is pulling in channel entries with dollar amounts in them; most of the dollar amounts are regular numbers, 2000, 100, etc., some are negative amounts (chargebacks?), -1600, etc., and some are just a dash "-".

I'm trying to filter the just dash "-" entries out of the results.

The parameter

search:tax_deductible_amount="not -"

removes all negative and just dash entries; however, the parameter with exact matching

search:tax_deductible_amount="=not -"

returns everything. Does it not recognize special characters?

Help?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I've just setup a few debug entries and excluding exact dash matches does seem to work.

{exp:channel:entries channel="about" search:about_body="=not -"}

All I can suggest is that you double-check that there's no whitespace surrounding your data and that you aren't being caught out by fancy dashes.

Answer 2

You might want to try the add-on Search Fields:

http://devot-ee.com/add-ons/search-fields

...if you can't get it to work with the Channel Entries tag. Search Fields is free and offers some other searchoptions too.