Frequently Asked Questions

A collection of frequently asked questions for Dataview queries and the expression language.

How do I use fields with the same name as keywords (like "from", "where")?

Dataview provides a special "fake" field called row which can be indexed into to obtain fields which conflict with Dataview keywords:

row.from /* Same as "from" */
row.where /* Same as "where" */

How do I access fields with spaces in the name?

There are two ways:

Use the normalized Dataview name for such a field - just convert the name to lowercase and replace whitespace with dashes ("-"). Something like Field With Space In It becomes field-with-space-in-it.
Use the implicit row field:
```
row["Field With Space In It"]
```

Do you have a list of resources to learn from?

Yes! Please see the Resources page.

Can I save the result of a query for reusability?

You can write reusable Javascript Queries with the dv.view function. In DQL, beside the possibility of writing your Query inside a Template and using this template (either with the Core Plugin Templates or the popular Community Plugin Templater), you can save calculations in metadata fields via Inline DQL, for example:

start:: 07h00m
end:: 18h00m
pause:: 01h30m
duration:: `= this.end - this.start - this.pause`

You can list the value (9h 30m in our example) then i.e. in a TABLE without needing to repeat the calculation:

```dataview
TABLE start, end, duration
WHERE duration
```

Gives you

File (1)	start	end	duration
Example	7 hours	18 hours	9 hours, 30 minutes

But storing a Inline DQL in a field comes with a limitation: While the value that gets displayed in the result is the calculated one, the saved value inside your metadata field is still your Inline DQL calculation. The value is literally = this.end - this.start - this.pause. This means you cannot filter for the Inlines' result like:

```dataview
TABLE start, end, duration
WHERE duration > dur("10h")
```

This will give you back the example page, even though the result doesn't fulfill the WHERE clause, because the value you are comparing against is = this.end - this.start - this.pause and is not a duration.

How can I hide the result count on TABLE Queries?

With Dataview 0.5.52, you can hide the result count on TABLE and TASK Queries via a setting. Go to Dataview's settings -> Display result count.