X-Git-Url: http://git.vanrenterghem.biz/git.ikiwiki.info.git/blobdiff_plain/309c689b6b139e67459c41a5132c9afec0504d84..88e8f08c8ffe61fbb3aa8d0fbf78a86c30c65543:/doc/pagespec.mdwn

diff --git a/doc/pagespec.mdwn b/doc/pagespec.mdwn
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..53519e7f0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/pagespec.mdwn
@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+To select a set of pages, such as pages that are locked, pages
+whose commit emails you want subscribe to, or pages to combine into a
+blog, the wiki uses a PageSpec. This is an expression that matches
+a set of pages.
+
+The simplest PageSpec is a simple list of pages. For example, this matches
+any of the three listed pages:
+
+	foo or bar or baz
+
+More often you will want to match any pages that have a particular thing in
+their name. You can do this using a glob pattern. "`*`" stands for any part
+of a page name, and "`?`" for any single letter of a page name. So this
+matches all pages about music, and any [[SubPage]]s of the SandBox, but does
+not match the SandBox itself:
+
+	*music* or SandBox/*
+
+You can also prefix an item with "`!`" to skip pages that match it. So to
+match all pages except for Discussion pages and the SandBox:
+
+	* and !SandBox and !*/Discussion
+
+Some more elaborate limits can be added to what matches using any of these
+functions:
+
+* "`link(page)`" - match only pages that link to a given page
+* "`backlink(page)`" - match only pages that a given page links to
+* "`creation_month(month)`" - match only pages created on the given month
+* "`creation_day(mday)`" - or day of the month
+* "`creation_year(year)`" - or year
+* "`created_after(page)`" - match only pages created after the given page
+  was created
+* "`created_before(page)`" - match only pages created before the given page
+  was created
+
+For example, to match all pages in a blog that link to the page about music
+and were written in 2005:
+
+	blog/* and link(music) and creation_year(2005)
+
+More complex expressions can also be created, by using parentheses for
+grouping. For example, to match pages in a blog that are tagged with either
+of two tags, use:
+
+	blog/* and (link(tag/foo) or link(tag/bar))
+
+Note that page names in PageSpecs are matched against the absolute
+filenames of the pages in the wiki, so a pagespec "foo" used on page
+"a/b" will not match a page named "a/foo" or "a/b/foo". To match
+relative to the directory of the page containing the pagespec, you can
+use "./". For example, "./foo" on page "a/b" matches page "a/foo".
+
+## Old syntax
+
+The old PageSpec syntax was called a "GlobList", and worked differently in
+two ways:
+
+1. "and" and "or" were not used; any page matching any item from the list
+   matched.
+2. If an item was prefixed with "`!`", then no page matching that item
+   matched, even if it matched an earlier list item.
+
+For example, here is the old way to match all pages except for the SandBox
+and Discussion pages:
+
+	* !SandBox !*/Discussion
+
+Using this old syntax is still supported. However, the old syntax is
+deprecated and will be removed at some point, and using the new syntax is
+recommended.