links([item]).kind.[linkType].attribute

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Operator Type:   Set creation
Operator Scope of Action:   Item

The links() operator builds a Set from a collection of links.

links[(notes)].kind.[linkType].$Attribute

selects one or more notes' links should be collected. The optional notes argument may be:

The note argument is not evaluated. Alaises can not be made the target note, even by use of paths.

The kind argument is one of these values:

and filters the directionality of the links collected.

The optional linkType argument collects only links of a specified link type, such as may be defined in the current TBX. linkType is a regular expression, so regular expression wild-card characters are permitted and retain their special meanings. If the linkType value contains white space or periods, it must be enclosed in quotes:

links.outbound."responds to".$Name 

If linkType is left empty, links of all types are collected except prototype links. Prototype links are always omitted.

The attribute argument is the name of the attribute whose values are to be collected in the result.

For example:

$MySet=links(/config).outbound.supports.$Name 

constructs a set of all the titles (from Name attribute) of notes that are linked to the top-level note named 'config' via links with the link type 'supports'. For multi-word link type names use quotes:

$MySet=links(/config).outbound."agrees with".$Name 

Whilst it is likely that 'Name' will be the most usual value for attribute, it can be any currently defined attribute:

$MySet=links(all).inbound."went to".$SchoolName 

collects a set of all the values of attribute 'SchoolName' for notes that are linked to via an inbound links of type "went to".

Beware when using a TBX that has notes with duplicate (same) Name values. As a set contains unique values, if several notes have identical names, then

MySet=links.inbound..Name 

will list the distinct Names only once in MySet, and so the latter will have fewer values than the actual number of matching links.


Up: Item-based operators
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[Last updated: 14 Dec 2009, using v5.0]

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