How do I search answer bodies for Markdown links?

Question

The /search/excerpt query enables searching answers for specific text, but searching for Markdown links returns results that don't seem to match the query at all. For instance, the following query value attempts to search answers with links that start with https://vuejs.org/v2 (by looking for the tail end of such a Markdown link):

"](https://vuejs.org/v2" is:answer

But it returns the following irrelevant posts (subset):

It's possible that my query is wrong (perhaps escape characters are needed). What query should I use to enable this search?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 15 '22 at 07:38

3

The search methods work on the HTML version of the post, so searching for Markdown won't work. You can either use this parameter

url - a url which must be contained in a post, may include a wildcard.

leading to this API call, or mimic a site search (I would search for url:"vuejs.org/v2" is:answer) and that leads to this API call.

answered Jul 15 '22 at 07:38

Glorfindel

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Just noticed the "repairing broken images or links" in your profile. That's exactly what I'm doing right now: fixing up old URLs (https://vuejs.org/v2) to point to the new one (https://v2.vuejs.org/v2). I'm currently using a script to update posts from a search one a a time (super slow), but I didn't realize SQL could do this for me in one step. Can you recommend a SQL script for me? – tony19 Jul 15 '22 at 20:23
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If it's a simple find & replace, staff has a tool which can do that easily without bumping questions. I'd recommend to post on Meta Stack Overflow about this. My script(s) can help when it's more difficult. – Glorfindel Jul 15 '22 at 20:27
Ah, of course. I should've thought of asking staff before writing my own script! ‍♂️ – tony19 Jul 15 '22 at 20:30

How do I search answer bodies for Markdown links?

1 Answers1