Search for multiple types with MPMediaPropertyPredicate

Question

I have the following:

MPMediaPropertyPredicate *titlePredicate = [MPMediaPropertyPredicate predicateWithValue:textString 
                                                                            forProperty:MPMediaItemPropertyTitle
                                                                         comparisonType:MPMediaPredicateComparisonContains];

NSSet *predicateSet = [NSSet setWithObject:titlePredicate];
MPMediaQuery *searchQuery = [[MPMediaQuery alloc] initWithFilterPredicates:predicateSet];
NSArray *itemsFromTextQuery = [searchQuery items];

 for (MPMediaItem *song in itemsFromTextQuery) 
 {
     [arrayOfSongItems addObject:song];
 }

Which works great, but only searched the Title of the track. I'd like it to return results for the Title, the Artist and the Album name.

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 06 '13 at 15:25

5

this works for me:

MPMediaQuery *searchQuery = [[MPMediaQuery alloc] init];
NSPredicate *test = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"title contains[cd] %@ OR albumTitle contains[cd] %@ OR artist contains[cd] %@", searchString, searchString, searchString];
NSArray *filteredArray = [[searchQuery items] filteredArrayUsingPredicate:test];

//NSLog(@"%@", [filteredArray valueForKeyPath:@"title"]);

for (MPMediaItem *song in filteredArray) 
{
    [arrayOfSongItems addObject:song];
}

I basically filter after getting all items from media query. I don't think my solution is better than filtering the query at the first place, but definitely better than searching three times separately. Or iterating through the array multiple times.

answered Feb 06 '13 at 15:25

This is all good - but then how do you know if its a track, album or artist? – daihovey Feb 07 '13 at 04:21
if you need this information then whats the problem not using 3 queries anyway? You could either use my solution and then in the for loop check those three values `if ([song.title isEqualToString:searchString]) {}` etc. OR if you use 3 queries and want to merge them you can check before adding a new element to your array with `if ([arr indexOfObject:@"new Item"] == NSNotFound) { //add new Item }` – Feb 07 '13 at 13:59
the problem is performance. running 3 queries on the whole library can take seconds - where as Apple's music player does it very quickly. – daihovey Sep 18 '13 at 06:05

score 4 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 04 '12 at 08:54

4

Try following code

 MPMediaQuery* query = [MPMediaQuery albumsQuery];

[query addFilterPredicate:[MPMediaPropertyPredicate predicateWithValue:self.strArtist forProperty:MPMediaItemPropertyArtist]]

[query addFilterPredicate:[MPMediaPropertyPredicate predicateWithValue:self.strTitle forProperty:MPMediaItemPropertyAlbumTitle]];

edited Jun 04 '12 at 08:54

Botz3000

39,020
8
103
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answered Jun 04 '12 at 08:47

Kuntal Gajjar

59
3

This assumes the two strings are different. I want to be able to show, like the iPhone's iPod app's search table, the artist & or the album & or the track that is found. – daihovey Feb 06 '13 at 12:19

Search for multiple types with MPMediaPropertyPredicate

2 Answers2