Empty search not allowed - makes it hard to build an enhanced search page

[jobjorn]

Hello all,

I am building an enhanced search form for a recipe database (using a Star Trek LCARS-like interface!). The enhancement is primarily being able to select tags that the returned results should be tagged with. This is made possible in part through using query_posts(); in the landing page, search.php.

However, what if you want to search for *just* tags, and no text? You want to look at what's tagged both "cheese" and "tomato", and see no need to enter any search term. The result is that $_GET['s'] will be empty, and you will not get to search.php at all - and then you can't see your cheese+tomato recipes.

This is because wp-includes/query.php uses !empty rather than isset when trying to figure out whether we want to see a search page attached or not.

Extremely simple diff attached. If this solution is for some reason unacceptable, I would very much appreciate any ideas on how to work around the issue.

[jobjorn]

Diff of wp-includes/query.php

[jobjorn]

This is related to ​#11330.

[jobjorn]

Scratch that solution - it always returns true.

[jobjorn]

New, working, diff

[jobjorn]

The just added attachment works as expected, but I suppose there is a good reason to use $qv['s'] rather than $_GET['s']?

[scribu]

This would introduce a glaring inconsistency: all other empty query vars are ignored, while 's' gets special treatment. That's not a good idea, from an API point of view.

Also, by your definition of search, when you're going to /category/foo/ you're also doing a search, which is plainly wrong, in the WP universe.

For these reasons, I'm closing this ticket as wontfix.

Feel free to leave follow-up comments (without opening the ticket).

[scribu]

A workaround for your problem would be to modify the resulting posts (or rather the resulting query) before the template is loaded.

This can be done using one of 'parse_query' or 'pre_get_posts' actions. Plenty of tutorials for that on the web.