Interface Constraint

All Known Implementing Classes:

AllConstraint, AnyConstraint, BetweenConstraint, ContainsConstraint, ExistsConstraint, FacetConstraint, LookAheadConstraint, MatchConstraint, NoOpConstraint, NotConstraint, PathConstraint, QueryConstraint

public interface Constraint

Base interface for defining filter conditions (constraints) used in document search queries.

Constraints determine whether a given Document matches specific criteria. Implementations of this interface can target paths, values, metadata, or structural characteristics of the document.

Serialization

This interface uses Jackson’s @JsonTypeInfo with deduction, enabling automatic deserialization of concrete types based on structure. If no recognizable subtype is matched, NoOpConstraint is used.

Subtypes include:

• AllConstraint – Logical AND of multiple constraints
• AnyConstraint – Logical OR of multiple constraints
• MatchConstraint – Matches exact phrases or terms
• ContainsConstraint – Substring matching on field values
• BetweenConstraint – Numeric or date range filtering
• ExistsConstraint – Matches documents with a non-null value at a path
• QueryConstraint – Full-text search syntax supporting wildcards and advanced logic
• NotConstraint – Negates a constraint
• LookAheadConstraint – Predictive phrase/word matching based on user typing, commonly used for user-facing document search
• FacetConstraint – Filters based on field facets (used for drilldown/aggregation)

Composability

Constraints can be composed into larger expressions using and(Constraint) and or(Constraint):

Constraint c = MatchConstraint.match("value", "path1")
    .and(ExistsConstraint.exists("path2"))
    .or(ContainsConstraint.contains("fragment", "description"));

See Also:

• Document
• PathConstraint

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method	Description
default Constraint	and(Constraint other)	Combines this constraint with another using logical AND.
default Constraint	decompose()	Returns a version of this constraint with all composite constraints decomposed into their atomic elements.
boolean	hasPathConstraint()	Indicates whether this constraint targets specific paths in the document.
boolean	matches(Document document)	Evaluates whether this constraint applies to the given document.
default Constraint	or(Constraint other)	Combines this constraint with another using logical OR.

Method Details

matches

boolean matches(Document document)

Evaluates whether this constraint applies to the given document.

Parameters:

document - the document to test

Returns:

true if the constraint matches the document

hasPathConstraint

boolean hasPathConstraint()

Indicates whether this constraint targets specific paths in the document.

Returns:

true if path-based filtering is involved

decompose

default Constraint decompose()

Returns a version of this constraint with all composite constraints decomposed into their atomic elements.

Useful for precomputing optimized structures (e.g. via AllConstraint or AnyConstraint).

Returns:

a simplified version of the constraint

and

default Constraint and(Constraint other)

Combines this constraint with another using logical AND.

Parameters:

other - the other constraint

Returns:

a new AllConstraint combining both

or

default Constraint or(Constraint other)

Combines this constraint with another using logical OR.

Parameters:

other - the other constraint

Returns:

a new AnyConstraint combining both