How to search Matrix?

Question

Say I have a Matrix that has the following fields:

• Name
• Age
• Gender

How would I find Channel entries like:

• the Channel entry's Age is between 20 and 25
• the Channel entry's Age is between 20 and 25 and Gender is "Male"
• the Channel entry has 1 Matrix entry only
• the Channel entry has 2 Matrix entries
• etc.

Answer 1

I take it you want this to be optimised and not use a whole bunch of conditions inside channel entries loops.

In that case, MySQL queries are your best bet here, IMHO. I would take the plugin route and create a plugin returning an array of entry_id and accepting the various parameters you need.

For example, you could create a plugin returning the entry_id of the entries having a matrix field with more than x entries. Such a plugin would be based on the following type of query:

SELECT DISTINCT `entry_id` FROM `exp_matrix_data` WHERE `field_id` = 48 GROUP BY `entry_id` HAVING COUNT(`entry_id`) > 2

You plugin tag would could easily pass it a parameter called nbr_matrix_rows with a value of x.