Coding Forms for Metadata Search
On this page:
- Metadata search basics
- Creating a metadata search form
- The inmeta tag
- Specifying multiple values
- Specifying multiple fields
- Sample complete search form
Metadata Search Basics
You can use the agency search engine to search for pages by metadata value. Metadata fields are also known as facets in the search world, and searching by values of metadata fields is known as faceted search. You might use metadata search to restrict your search to, for instance, only Overviews & Fact Sheets. Or you may want to search only pages that are tagged for a particular substance.
Every metadata field is available for search. You can search a single metadata field for one or more value. You can also search on combinations of different metadata fields. For instance, you could search for Overviews & Fact Sheets that are tagged for a particular substance.
Creating a Metadata Search Form
A metadata search form starts with a
Modify the form in these three ways:
- Change the value of typeofsearch from epa to area. This tells the search engine to only specific pages, rather than the entire collection.
<input type ="hidden" name="typeofsearch" value="epa" />
becomes
<input type="hidden" name="typeofsearch" value="area" /> - Add an area name. This tells the search engine what text to display to describe the search results
<input type="hidden" name="areaname" value="Overviews and Factsheets for Lead (example)" /> - Add one or more inmeta tags. These tags tell the search engine what field/value combinations to restrict the search to.
<input type="hidden" name="inmeta" value="DC.type=Overviews & Factsheets" />
The inmeta Tag
The value for an inmeta tag consists of a field name, an operator, and a value. For example: DC.type=Overviews & Factsheets.
The rules for coding the inmeta values are:
- The field name must be the Metadata Tag name exactly, including punctuation, spacing and casing. For a list of metadata tags, see Metadata for WebCMS.
- The operator for exactly equal is the equal sign (=). The operator for contains is the tilde (~).
- The value is one or more words that must appear to search for in the Metadata Tag. If you specified exactly equals (=), it must be the full value. If you specified contains, it must be one or more consecutive words.
You can modify the form to search for PDFs only:
- Adding the PDF inmeta tag to your code will search for only PDFs and not pages. To search for both pages and PDFs, you will need to set up two separate searches.
<input name="inmeta" type="hidden" value="filetype_s=PDF" />
Specifying Multiple Values
You can specify more than one value in your inmeta tag. Separate multiple values with the pipe symbol (|). Example:
<input type="hidden" name="inmeta" value="DC.type=Overviews & Factsheets|Reports & Assessments" />
When you provide multiple values, documents with ANY of the values will be returned.
Specifying Multiple Fields
You can search multiple fields by coding multiple inmeta statements. Example
<input type="hidden" name="inmeta" value="DC.type=Overviews & Factsheets" />
<input type="hidden" name="inmeta" value="DC.Subject.epasubstance=mercury" />
The relationship between two different fields is alway AND. In the example above, you are search documents with a type of Overviews & Factsheets AND a substance of mercury.
Sample Complete Search Form
<form action="https://search.epa.gov/epasearch/epasearch" method="get">
<div class="form-item form-type-textfield">
<label for="what-look">What are you looking for?</label>
<input class="form-text" id="what-look" name="querytext" size="40" type="text" value="" />
</div>
<input class="form-submit" type="submit" value="What are you looking for?" />
<input name="typeofsearch" type="hidden" value="area" />
<input name="areaname" type="hidden" value="Mercury Fact Sheets" />
<input type="hidden" name="inmeta" value="DC.type=Overviews & Factsheets" />
<input type="hidden" name="inmeta" value="DC.Subject.epasubstance=mercury" />
</form>