I have noticed this on all sorted routes.
The min/max say that they are context sensitive to the sort type yet are documented as date.
How is a date min/max valid when sorting by, for instance votes?
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1 Answer
todate and fromdate always refer to creation date.
min and max are with respect to the current sort. So, where sort=votes they place upper and lower bounds on the score of returned answers/questions.
They can overlap, but do not always do so.
Documentation has been updated to reflect that min and max can be of any number of types.
/search for example.
We try and do "what's expected" given a sort value.
sort can be of some set of values depending (and documented on) the route in question. Common values are creation, activity, name, and the like.
Generally, the value of sort corresponds to a field in the returned objects to sort by:
creation->creation_datename->display_nameactivity->last_activity_date- and so on...
In rare cases the sorted field is something that is not exposed by the API - generally as a consequence of being hidden on the site, or only shown to logged in user - such as added on users/{id}/favorites.
added sorts returned questions by the date the user in question "favorited" them. As we don't display such information anywhere on the site, its not returned by the API.
While the possible types of min and max is (now) documented, the range can be inferred based on context. Namely, if the field being sorted has a certain range (votes for instance being positive and negative integers, creation_date being >= Jan 1 1970, etc.) then min and max must fall in the same range.
hot, week, and month sorts are strange beasts. The ordering of the returned results is dependent on the "hotness" - an intentionally undocumented algorithm, subject to change, which drives the front page of the sites - of a set of questions. min and max on these sorts restricts questions by last_activity_date. This is something of a compromise. The API can't really take in "hotness" values, since we can't/won't document them, but it we do acknowledge that they are in some way influenced by last_activity_date; so we let you pass those in for a range.
24 Comments
Sky Sanders
Ok, that answers the initial question, which I obviated in the edit. As you say, and as I note, min/max are in respect to sort. If the sort is 'votes', how is a date value for min/max valid? min/max should be specified as string with clarification in the summary.
Kevin Montrose
@code poet - I'm aware of the doc oversight.
Sky Sanders
Good. Should I spend time coding around it or just wait for the fix?
Kevin Montrose
@code poet - there are more pressing matters at hand, so it depends how long you're willing to wait. It'll probably be at least a few days.
Sky Sanders
ummmm... it does not affect me but the incorrectly documented min/max are still confusing people and developers. They should be documented as string and context explained in description
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