CDJ queries work by finding pieces of music or whole discs which have attributes that match the relationship you specify in your query.
The basic format of a simple query is:
(Field) (Comparison) (Value)
some examples of this format would be
| title = love |
| album == "moving pictures" |
| artist = elvis |
| playtime > 1:30 |
| timelastplayed < 4d |
| timereleased > 1/1/68 |
The following fields are supported, along with shorthand equivalents. Expect that many new fields will be added in the future.
Fields |
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| Name | Shorthand | Data Type | Description |
| title | ti | text | title of track |
| artist | ar | text | name of artist |
| album | al | text | title of album (disc) |
| lyrics | ly | text | lyrics of track |
| notes | no | text | notes for track / disc |
| player | pl | number | number of player on which music resides |
| keywords | kw | text | user defined keywords |
| playtime | pt | playtime | playing time of music |
| timeadded | ta | datetime | date / time the music was added to your collection |
| timeplayed | tp | playtime | amount of time this music has been played |
| timesplayed | nt | number | number of times this music has been played |
| timereleased | tr | datetime | date / time the music was released |
| timelastplayed | tl | datetime | date / time the music was last played |
| like | -20 to +20 slider rating* | ||
| happy | -20 to +20 slider rating* | ||
| tempo | -20 to +20 slider rating* | ||
| danceable | -20 to +20 slider rating* | ||
* these names will eventually become user definable
The following types of comparisons are supported.
Comparisons |
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| Symbol | Description |
| = | numbers - equals strings - is found within |
| == | numbers - equals strings - is identical (not case sensitive) |
| > | is less than (works for strings too) |
| < | is greater than (works for strings too) |
The following data types are supported.
Data Types |
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| Name | Description | Samples | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| text | A text string. If a string contains spaces or characters which could be construed as comparisons or boolean operators, it should be enclosed in quotes. |
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| number | An integer or floating point number |
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| playtime | Time expressed as seconds or in a minutes:seconds format |
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| datetime | Time expressed in one of the following formats
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| Absolute - these formats express an absolute time |
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Relative - these formats express time as an
offset to the past from the current time. The default unit is the day, but the following
units are supported:
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CDJ allows you to make boolean queries of unlimited complexity along with some special features to make expressions even more compact. The following boolean operators are supported:
Boolean Operators (in order of precedence) |
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| Symbol | Shorthand | Function |
| not | ! | invert the logical sense of the expression to the right |
| and | & | expression to the left and right must be true |
| or | | | expression to the left or right must be true |
| xor | ^ | only one expression to the left or right must be true |
CDJ also allows the use of parentheses to control the order of operations in an expression.
The following is an example of a more advanced query
| (title="shot the sheriff" and (ar=elvis | not player<2)) ^ (album=odelay or like>5) |
The CDJ expression syntax also allows you to factorize both fields and values using boolean operators to create queries with less typing.
Instead of saying
| keyword=fun & (keyword=punk ^ keyword=female) |
You can just say
| keyword=(fun & (punk ^ female)) |
Likewise, fields can be condensed. Instead of saying
| artist = elvis | album = elvis | title = elvis |
You can just say
| (artist | album | title) = elvis |
Factorizations can be done on both sides simultaneously
| (artist | title) = (cat & dog) |
is equivalent to
| artist=cat & artist=dog | title=cat & title=dog |
To make things more convenient, if you just type in some text, such as
| elvis |
CDJ will default to interpreting this as
| (title | artist | album | keywords) = elvis |