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Dataview plugin

Overview

Dataview is a live index and query engine. You can add metadata to notes and query them with the Dataview Query Language (DQL), you can list, filter, sort or group your data without affecting the actual notes. It keeps the queries up to date and always shows the updated data, no need to re-run the query.

Some of many possible use cases:

• Track your sleep by recording it in daily notes and automatically create weekly tables of your sleep schedule.
• Automatically collect links to books in your notes and render them all sorted by rating.
• Automatically collect pages associated with today’s date and show them in your daily note.
• Find pages with no tags for follow-up, or show pretty views of specifically tagged pages.
• Create dynamic views which show upcoming birthdays or events recorded in your notes
• Much more…

Dataview gives you a fast way to search, display and operate on indexed data in your vault. With high performance, it can scale up to hundreds of thousands of annotated notes without issue.

If the built in query language is insufficient for your purpose, you can run arbitrary Javascript against the dataview API, check out the online API reference.

[!Dataview is about displaying, not editing]- Dataview is meant for displaying and calculating data. It is not meant to edit your notes/metadata and will always leave them untouched.

How to use Dataview

Metadata and data indexing

• Adding metadata
• Data types
• Metadata on pages
• Metadata on tasks and lists

Operates on metadata in your markdown files. Cannot read everything from the vault, only specific data from the [[01_Reference/software tools/YAML|YAML frontmatter]] or from the inline fields via [key::value] syntax.

Dataview will index information like tags, lists, data from the frontmatter and inline [key::value] fields. Only indexed data is available in a dataview query.

After adding useful metadata to markdown files, you will want to display it and operate on it. If your files and data changes, returned data will live-reload, printing relevant and updated information.

Writing queries with DQL, inlines and javascript

REFERENCE (delete later) - https://blacksmithgu.github.io/obsidian-dataview/queries/dql-js-inline/

There are few different ways you can write a query. Using the Dataview Query Language (DQL) written as a codeblock or inline DQL statement. There is also most flexible but most complex way by utilising a Javascript Query and Javascript API. Each style requires different annotation.

[!example]- Click to show more

• DQL code blocks are separated from rest of the content. Opens with three backticks followed by a dataview annotation that will set a type of codeblock dataview*. Codeblock is closed with three backticks *
• Inline DQL statement can be inserted into rest of the content with a single backtick followed by a equal sign prefix. Inline code to print the filename: = this.file.name, print the tag list = this.tags. Prefix can be configured to another token like dv: or ~ by changing the dataview settings under “Codeblock settings” > “Inline Query Prefix”
• Javascript Query and Javascript API gives you the full power of Javascript allowing you to create arbitrarily complex queries and views. Dataview JS blocks are annotated as a ```dataviewjs codeblock

Dataview query language (DQL)

Similar to SQL language. Read about differences to SQL to avoid confusion.

DQL query is created inside a codeblock that uses dataview as a type. It supports four different query types to produce different outputs. LIST, TABLE, TASK and CALENDAR.

[!example]- Click to show more The following example is a TABLE query, showing type and url property values for all files with #personal tag. Switch to edit mode to preview the syntax.

TABLE type AS “type”, url AS “url” FROM #personal SORT rating DESC

Inline DQL statement

A Inline DQL uses a inline block format instead of a code block. If i type three backticks i will start the code block

# this is bash code block opened with a three ```backticks
export VARIBALE=value

Inline DQL statement is marked with a single backtick followed by an equal sign `= You can reconfigure the settings to another token instead of equal sign under “Codeblock settings” - “Inline Query Prefix”

Switch to edit mode to preview the syntax of inline example example: Today is = date(today)

[!example]- Click to show more Switch to edit mode to preview the syntax of inline example. The following example is an inline statement showing the properties of this object.

The filename is = this.file.name Last modified time = this.file.mtime Current tags are = this.tags Value of type property is = this.type Value of source property is = this.source

You can either access the properties of the current note via this object this.file.name, or access different note via [[link_to_note]].file.name. Switch to edit mode to view the syntax:

example: =[[_workflow]].file.name is last modified =[[_workflow]].file.mtime

Query language reference

• Structure of a query
• Query types
• Data commands
• Differences to SQL
• Sources
• Expressions
• Literals
• Functions

Javascript reference

• Overview
• Data arrays
• Codeblock reference
• Codeblock examples

Reference

• [[_dataview_database/index|dataview - index page]] - personal note
• blacksmithgu.github/documentation - official documentation
• blacksmithgu.github/resources - community resources
• publish.obsidian.md/hub - “Obsidian hub”, community guides, workflows and courses
• publish.obsidian.md/community_guides - “SkepticMystic’s introduction to Dataview, video guide”
• publish.obsidian.md/community_guides - “SkepticMystic’s introduction to Dataview, textual guide”

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