Search Product

Goal

Allow the operator to search the catalog using one or more optional filters: Product ID, product name keywords, and year.

Required behaviour

Search flow

• Selecting Search from the main menu starts a product search.
• Display the prompt: Enter the specs and find the matching product
• The operator may choose whether to search by:
  • Product ID
  • Name
  • Year
• Each filter uses:
  • 1 = Yes
  • 2 = No
• Filters are optional.
• A product must satisfy all selected filters to be returned.

Product ID filter

When Product ID search is selected:

• Accept exactly 6 digits.
• Match the product ID exactly.
• Only the product with the matching ID should be returned.

Name filter

When Name search is selected:

• The name must be non-empty.
• Matching is case-insensitive.
• A single word matches products whose name contains that keyword.
• Multiple words require every keyword to appear in the product name.
• Keyword matching is case-insensitive.
• Matching should use the product name index where applicable.

For example:

• Search: java

  • Java Complete Reference → match
  • Python Programming → no match

• Search: java reference

  • Java Complete Reference → match
  • Java Programming → no match

Year filter

When Year search is selected, accept these formats:

• YYYY — exact year
• -YYYY — year less than or equal to YYYY
• YYYY- — year greater than or equal to YYYY
• YYYY-YYYY — inclusive range

Examples:

• 2020 → only products from 2020
• -2020 → products from 2020 or earlier
• 2020- → products from 2020 or later
• 2018-2022 → products from 2018 through 2022

Combining filters

Filters must be combined using AND semantics.

For example:

• ID + Name → product must match both.
• Name + Year → product must match both.
• ID + Year → product must match both.
• ID + Name + Year → product must match all three.

If no filters are selected, every product in the catalog should be returned.

Search results

For every matching product:

• Print the human-readable datadump() representation.
• Do not print the file serialization produced by toString().

If no products match, no product results are printed.

Out of scope

• Searching by author.
• Searching by publisher.
• Searching by maker.
• Adding or editing products.
• Deleting products.
• Changing catalog import behaviour.
• Changing catalog export behaviour.
• Changing the main menu commands.

Acceptance

• Operator can search by exact Product ID.
• Invalid Product IDs are rejected.
• Operator can search by a single name keyword.
• Name matching is case-insensitive.
• Multiple name keywords use AND semantics.
• Operator can search by an exact year.
• Operator can search by a maximum year.
• Operator can search by a minimum year.
• Operator can search by an inclusive year range.
• ID and Name filters can be combined.
• ID and Year filters can be combined.
• Name and Year filters can be combined.
• All three filters can be combined.
• Skipped filters do not constrain the search.
• Selecting no filters returns every product.
• Matching products are printed using datadump().
• Existing Add and Export behaviour remains unchanged.