Filters and boolean operators

Algolia supports the following operators, which must be in capital letters:

• OR: must match any of the combined conditions
• AND: must match all the combined conditions
• NOT: negates a filter

Use of parentheses

Use parentheses ( and ) to combine several OR conditions. These rules apply:

• Don’t group ANDs within ORs. For example, A OR (B AND C) OR (D AND E) isn’t allowed
• Top-level AND conditions don’t require parentheses. For example, (A AND (B OR C)) and (A AND B) aren’t allowed.
• Don’t use parentheses to negate a group of expressions. For example, NOT (filter1 OR filter2) isn’t allowed.

Use the filter syntax validator to help you verify and build filter statements.

Examples of correct usage

• A AND (B OR C)
• (A OR B) AND C
• A AND (B OR C) AND (D OR E)
• A AND B AND (C OR D) AND (E OR F)
• (A OR B) AND (C OR D) AND E

Example scenarios

• Find books not written by a specific author: (category:Book OR category:Ebook) AND NOT author:"JK Rowling"
• Filter products by price range and category: price:10 TO 50 AND (category:Electronics OR category:Accessories)
• Complex filter with several conditions: inStock:true AND (category:Phones OR category:Tablets) AND (brand:Apple OR brand:Samsung) AND price>500

Don’t mix filter types in OR conditions

You can’t compare different filter types (string, numeric, tags) with an OR. For example, num=3 OR tag1 OR facet:value isn’t allowed.

Apps and user actions change filter expressions

If a user or app selects a filter, Algolia omits the filters that don’t apply from the expression.

For example, if the original filter expression is ((category:Electronics OR category:Home) AND NOT brand:LG) AND NOT price:100 TO 500 and the user selects the Electronics category, the expression simplifies to (category:Electronics AND NOT brand:LG) AND NOT price:100 TO 500.