lotus notes search by date with Java api

Question

I'm trying to select records by date from a Lotus Notes database and have run into trouble with correctly formatting the date.

Here's the relevant code:

public void runNotes()  {
    Session s;
    try {
        s = NotesFactory.createSession((String)null, (String)null, "mypassword");
        Database hkDB = 
            s.getDatabase("NBHDH001/YNM", "H\\DHH00001.nsf", false);
        DocumentCollection docs = hkDB.search("[Date]>[2012/03/20]");

Date is a field in the record, and when I looked up records (with FTSearch), the date came back in the format above: [yyyy/mm/dd].

The parameter of the search is what I need here. i.e. what should I put instead of "[Date]>[2012/03/20]"

I tried various constructions with Calendar and DateFormat, but it's not coming together...

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

You should get rid of the square brackets on the field name. The search method expects a Notes Formula, like what you'd put into a view selection formula:

"Date > [03/20/2012]"

It might also be required that dates are in mm/dd/yyyy format, though if you are in a non-US locale I'm not 100% sure.

Answer 2

You mentioned that you have been doing full text searches in the database, so it is definitely worth mentioning this... If the database actually has a full text index, then you may want to consider using the NotesDatabase.FTSearch() method instead of NotesDatabase.Search(). The FTSearch method will be considerably faster for a large database.

The syntax for FTSearch is different from the syntax for Search. You could use either "FIELD Date > 03/20/2012" or "[Date] > 03/20/2012".