Visual Studio: Query TFS Work Items: AND/OR Logic doesn't work?

Question

I need to find TFS work items related to a certain topic in our project. For that purpose, I tried querying the work items using the query builder in Visual Studio.

Since there are multiple terms I wish to search for, I imagined a query like this:

WHERE ( Priority > 300 AND (Title.Contains('Dog') OR Title.Contains('Cat') OR Title.Contains('Hamster')))

Now, according to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd286638.aspx (Section And/Or) one should be able to do that like so:

 | Priority| > | 300 And | Title | Contains | Dog Or | Title | Contains | Cat Or | Title | Contains | Hamster

But... that does not work as described: as far as I can see, this is treated like

(Priority > 300 AND Title.Contains('Dog')) OR Title.Contains('Cat') OR Title.Contains('Hamster')))

Now that is a bit of a problem for me, because apart from a 'Priority' criterion I also have 8 additional criteria that need to apply to all the matches (Date, State, etc.). And I have not only three possible title matches, but around ten. So that multiplies and I would end up with a query that is terribly long and mostly redundant.

.. or, am I missing something here? Is there another way to express those statements? Or is there even another way to query TFS work items, like another tool?

Thanks!

DaveShaw · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-24 10:37:03Z

34

You need to "Group" your Title clauses together to get the query you expect. Select the three "Title" clauses, Right Click and select "Group Clauses".

Group Clauses

Here's a snip of a query I created in VS2012 to do this, but it's the same in 2010.

It will only find work items with a Priority >4 and a Title containing either Crash, Error or Working.

Query with Grouped Clauses

answered Oct 24, 2012 at 10:37

DaveShaw

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4 Comments

Sir Crispalot Over a year ago

+1 This was driving me crazy! You can do this in the web UI as well - by checking the boxes alongside each clause and clicking the Group selected clauses button at the top of the column.

Gaurav Khurana Over a year ago

@SirCrispalot how do we remove the grouping ?

Sir Crispalot Over a year ago

@Gauravkhurana I just tried this - for the web UI, you just click the icon in pink highlight which spans the clauses you have grouped. It will ungroup them.

Gaurav Khurana Over a year ago

Thanks just noticed that inside the pink box we have to take the cursor eaxctly over the braces. Thank you :)

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