[tor-bugs] #23829 [Metrics/Onionoo]: Add support for search term negation

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#23829: Add support for search term negation
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 Reporter:  cypherpunks      |          Owner:  karsten
     Type:  enhancement      |         Status:  accepted
 Priority:  Medium           |      Milestone:
Component:  Metrics/Onionoo  |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal           |     Resolution:
 Keywords:                   |  Actual Points:
Parent ID:                   |         Points:
 Reviewer:                   |        Sponsor:
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Comment (by cypherpunks):

 > Ah! Well, you're right that nicknames and IPs are mutually exclusive.
 But other unqualified search terms are not. For example, `aaaa` could be
 the beginning of a hex-encoded fingerprint, any 4 hex character block in
 the middle of a space-separated fingerprint, the beginning of a
 base64-encoded fingerprint, the beginning of an IPv6 address, the
 beginning of a nickname, and maybe even something else I didn't think of
 right now. It would probably be very confusing to look at the results of
 `search=!aaaa` and guess which relays were excluded and why. Hmm.

 the unqualified search term can be:
 - nickname
 - fingerprint
 - base64 fingerprint
 - IP address
 - hashed fingerprint

 I is probably not valuable to implement negation for unqualified search
 terms, but I
 still would see a use case in being able to say "not in IP block a.b.(c.)"
 - which implies that we might want a new 'ip' url parameter?

 >> All use-cases can be formed with the ! sign being used in the value
 part only, right?
 > Yes.

 Ok than it is less confusing to accept `!` in the value part only.

 > I'm inclined to take back the suggestion to negate search terms. If we
 limit negation to parameters like "flag", "as", and so on, that might be
 more intuitive. And we could always extend it to the "search" parameter
 later on in a backward-compatible if we change our minds. But I think we
 should start without the "search" parameter, except for values of
 qualified search terms, of course.

 Agreed.

 > Alright, I think I can work with this and write some more code. That
 won't happen today, but I'll try to do this next week.

 thank you!

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/23829#comment:7>
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