Marco Guidi schrieb: [...]

2. Depending on how the user fills the form, the where clause may require some different operators (>, <, and or, and so on). is there a way to generalize this (may be the creation of a dictionary in the REQUEST with the where operators needed by the specific form ?).

Well .. I did this using properties for the SQL operators. In my search folder I defined some token and text properties: search_fields a list containing the names of the fields of my SQL table I want to let show up in the search form (all are string - fields). Critops a list with the operators: like like like = < > Critbez a list with translations for the operators for showing up in a select box in the search form: contains begins_with ends_with is_eqal less_then greater_then start_op a _text_-property containing wildcards for the sql method (note that the empty lines are necessary): % % end_op the same as start_op but a little different ;): % % the search_form is a DTML Method where I define a select box for the fieldnames <!--#in search_fields-->, a second select box with critbez, an input field for text and an other select box with NONE / AND / OR values for further search - requests (I put this in a loop collecting the values in lists) the SQL - method looks this way: Arguments: Crit1_Fieldname:list Crit1_search:int:list Crit1_FieldValue:list Crit1_and_or:list select * from adr <!--#if Crit1_Fieldname--> where <!--#in "loop_range(max=5)"--> <!--#unless "Crit1_Fieldname[_['sequence-index']]=='NONE'"--> <!--#var "Crit1_Fieldname[_['sequence-index']]"--> <!--#var "Critops[(Crit1_search[_['sequence-index']])]"--> '<!--#var"start_op[(Crit1_search[_['sequence-index']])]"--><!--#var "Crit1_FieldValue[_['sequence-index']]"--><!--#var"end_op[(Crit1_search[_['sequence-index']])]"-->' <!--#if "Crit1_and_or[_['sequence-index']]<>'NONE'"--> <!--#var "Crit1_and_or[_['sequence-index']]"--> <!--#/if "Crit1_and_or[_['sequence-index']]<>'NONE'"--> <!--#/unless "Crit1_Fieldname[_['sequence-index']]=='NONE'"--> <!--#/in "loop_range(max=5)"--> <!--#/if Crit1_Fieldname--> loop_range is an external method for a simple loop. Note that the code in '<!--#var"start_op[(Crit1_search[_['sequence-index']])]"-->... <!--#var"end_op[(Crit1_search[_['sequence-index']])]"-->' must be written in one single line without any blanks in it. I don't know whether this is really elegant, but for me it works fine. thomas -- fon: ++49 (0)40 42878 3781 fax: ++49 (0)40 42878 2728