How to form a search predicate using swift data with a one to many model

"Cannot convert value of type 'Bool?' to closure result type 'Bool'"

This is a simple Swift error. In your filter expression you are using optional chaining which is why it yields a result of type Bool?. The predicate closure, however, expects to be given a value of type Bool. Here is a fix for that particular error:

let searchPredicate = #Predicate<SectionsSD> {
    $0.toArticles?.contains(filter) == true
}

‎

"Instance method 'contains' requires the types 'ArticlesSD' and 'String.Element' (aka 'Character') be equivalent"

$0.articles is of type [ArticlesSD]? and using contains on this array means you need to pass it a value of type ArticlesSD to check for. You are instead passing it a String (I'm assuming here that filter is a String) which is not what it expects. To fix this you can compare the filter to the search property in the contains closure.

let searchPredicate = #Predicate<SectionsSD> {
    $0.toArticles?.contains { $0.search.contains(filter) } == true
}

And now you may think this works…but it doesn't. Swift spits out this error: "Optional chaining is not supported here in this predicate. Use the flatMap(_:) function explicitly instead. (from macro 'Predicate')". To fix this you can do what it says and wrap the original condition inside of a flatMap, like this:

let searchPredicate = #Predicate<SectionsSD> {
    $0.toArticles.flatMap {
        $0.contains { $0.search.contains(filter) }
    } == true
}

Hope this helps (and works)!

Thank you partially helpful in getting past the errors so syntax is right but when I enter my search string (when it's 3 or more characters) and it kicks in using the predicate the result is no matches even though I know for certain that the search fields are present. If I don't run the predicate I get my full list with search entries (see screen shot) but if I type in a known string that's in the search string so should return a true (and maybe it does) I get nothing in the resulting sectionsDB. I've included some code here to show how I enter the predicate and pass it. Must be something down stream in "FilteredList" I need to do?

struct FilteredList: View {
    @EnvironmentObject var userSettings: UserSettings
    @Environment(\.modelContext) private var context
    @Query() var sectionsSD: [SectionsSD]
        
    private var isExpanded: Bool
    
    var body: some View {
        
        List(sectionsSD) { result in
            Section(result.section) {
                ForEach(result.toArticles!) { article in
                    NavigationLink(destination: ArticleView(title: article.title, summary: article.summary, content: article.body)) {
                        VStack(alignment: .leading) {
                            Text(article.title)
                                .font(.custom("Helvetica", size: 16))
                            if isExpanded {
                                Text(article.summary)
                                    .font(.custom("Helvetica", size: 12))
                                    .foregroundColor(Color(UIColor.systemGray))
                                Text(article.search)
                            }
                        }
                    }
                    /// Hide the row separator
                    .listRowSeparator(.hidden)
                }
            }
        }
    }
    
    init(filter: String, isExpanded: Bool) {
        if filter.count >= 3 {
            let searchPredicate = #Predicate<SectionsSD> {
                $0.toArticles.flatMap {
                    $0.contains { $0.search.contains(filter) }
                } == true
            }
            _sectionsSD = Query(filter: searchPredicate)
        }
        self.isExpanded = isExpanded
    }
    
}

Your suggestion of moving it outside and gave me the expected result. So now I get the net sections per the filter which is good. While that gets my sections narrowed my model still has all the articles under each section. In the past I did this with a filter in the list (see commented out if statement):

                ForEach(result.toArticles!) { article in
//                    if article.search.contains(filter) {
                        NavigationLink(destination: ArticleView(title: article.title, summary: article.summary, content: article.body)) {
                            VStack(alignment: .leading) {
                                Text(article.title)
                                    .font(.custom("Helvetica", size: 16))
                                if isExpanded {
                                    Text(article.summary)
                                        .font(.custom("Helvetica", size: 12))
                                        .foregroundColor(Color(UIColor.systemGray))
                                }
                            }
                        }
//                    }
                    /// Hide the row separator
                        .listRowSeparator(.hidden)
                }

but it barfs on the NavigationLink line of code with: "No exact matches in reference to static method 'buildExpression'"

So I'm guess it's just still too early a beta here given the problem you originally located with the predicate and we just encounter problems further downstream until this is fixed. Or, under this model I have to find a way in the predicate as the second stage filter down to just the articles that in the toArticles that match to avoid using my simple "if" statement. Not sure how to do that in a predicate or if it's even possible.

My initial thought for this was to use something similar to @SectionedFetchRequest: get all the articles, filter them down, then group by section. At the moment SwiftData doesn't have that capability. I did file feedback for this (FB12292770) so hopefully this is possible later on and could be a solution for your problem. Sectioning would be more efficient because you are currently filtering twice, one for the sections' articles and then again for the articles in each section, when you could do it all at once including a predicate.

‎

"No exact matches in reference to static method 'buildExpression'"

This normally means that there is an error somewhere else in the view code but you just need to find it. Try commenting out certain bits to see where the actual error is located. My guess, by looking at your code, is that you are applying the .listRowSeparator(.hidden) to the if statement and not an actual view.

‎

I have noted that you are force unwrapping result.toArticles!. Maybe you could remove the optional and give it a default value instead if you are confident it won't be nil.

var toArticles: [ArticlesSD] = []

This might eliminate some of the optionality problems encountered with the predicate.

Thanks for all your help on this and filling the ticket as well. Clearly there are some issues with the basic predicate not being able to do it as we first tried and having to move it. Let's hope they address that issue (it's still early beta so hopeful). Yes, it's a pain to do two separate sorts. This is the difference between simple todo list examples vs more real world use cases. Why have a sorted section list with orphan sections and not be able to sort out the irrelevant items in each section in the predicate searches. I guess part of this is that Apple still views these as basically persistent arrays and are having to do gymnastics to interrelate them. Why not just bite the bullet and provide a sql like interface over it? In the end it's a big improvement over core data and makes it way easier for developers to do a lot of the backend data management for apps not just view based data entry.

The .listRowSeparator placement was me just being tired and not attentive when I was putting in the secondary filter. Thanks for being kind on pointing that out. I have some cleanup to do but this all worked in the end and I'll look for it to morph with each beta release. Eventually it will get there, right? I'll force unwrap just in case and I have some other tidbits of cleanup to do.

Here's the fix that I found.

let searchPredicate = #Predicate<SectionsSD> {
   $0.toArticles?.contains(filter) ?? false
}