[X] Filter MISSING

Florian

Just to let you know, in:

I think (in program and docs) MISSING should be ABSENT. Perhaps this is a translation error.

Looking at a translation web site, the original German "fehlen" leads to the following suggestions:
http://dict.leo.org/englisch-deutsch/fehlen
which delivers more or less only "absent", "missing", "lacking".

Checking "absent" http://dict.leo.org/englisch-deutsch/absent
transports the connotation of "is not there but should better be" like in "absent-minded" or "absent without leave" which (as far as I understand it) implies some kind of bad intention.

"Missing" (missing - LEO: Übersetzung im ­Englisch ⇔ Deutsch Wörterbuch) has the connotation of "not there" but this time without any deliberation but more or less accidental.

I am not sure if this is also the case in English.

A check on wordhippo for the opposite of "PRESENT" offers "absent".
https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the-oppos...of/present.html
and also the reverse check of the opposite of "absent" offers "present" - but only as second best choice.
If you check the opposite of MISSING on the same site
https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the-oppos...of/missing.html
the first choice is "present".

So, what made you reconsider the function (almost) 8 years after its initial introduction?

I didn't reconsider. This is the first time I've come to use ABSENT.

I've used PRESENT, so today when I needed the opposite, I tried NOT PRESENT and then ABSENT.

In British English, the word for NOT PRESENT is ABSENT https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define+absent

To be MISSING the thing has the be absent and expected. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define+missing

NOT PRESENT
would have worked.

Yes - in Mp3tag. Thanks.

I guess the reason I didn't try that is that its English meaning is definitely not what I wanted Mp3tag to do.

In English, NOT PRESENT refers to all fields that are not .

So is very different from NOT PRESENT (or NOT ( PRESENT) ) , which refers to only the specified field.

It is fairly astounding that you did not use the "NOT" in the correct fashion as we discussed that at length in
/t/14752/1
That thread also referenced the help on filters so that the keywords for the existence or non-existence of fields should not have been such a new topic.

Considering the length of time that this feature has been around I would consider it a customary feature. Changing to other keywords would probably cause more hickups than good.

Four years ago :slight_smile:

NOT wasn't useful to me then and I've has no use for it since ... except now as reported here.

Back in the days where I've implemented the filter query syntax, I was inspired by foobar2000's query syntax (which also uses MISSING). I wasn't aware of the subtle differences between those two words, so thanks for pointing.

I think comparing the query language to English gives a little too much honor to this very limited language. It has a documented syntax which serves as a reference.

Yes, and I don't consider this a bug. However, I'll add ABSENT as a synonym with the next release. This way all of us that are used to use MISSING can use it — and ABSENT also works.

Kind regards
– Florian

Accepted, but I think Mp3tag's choosing to use English words invites the user to think they might operate as do like English words, esp. since the extra typing of e.g. AND over & is worth having only if English is somehow better.

Thanks.

An idea for future: Allow English-like locating of NOT e.g.

NOT TITLE IS Yesterday
TITLE IS NOT Yesterday

NOT likely to happen.

Kind regards
– Florian

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.