Tag list not working correctly

[Don Dz 165]

Hello, I have edited a number of tags to begin with a period (.) and some others with an underscore (_), so that when I enter those characters, all the tags starting with them would show in the tag list.  Well, when I enter the period it shows all tags starting with it as expected, but when I enter the underscore, it shows all tags starting with the underscore AND  all tags starting with the period.  Plus some others starting with (`).

The only thing they may have in common is that I previously may have started them all with an underscore, while experimenting to figure the best way to get tags to sort the way I want them, but that should be irrelevant since I tried several different combinations in the mean time.

Currently using 6.13.13.7425 (307425) GA for Windows (too much noise going on in the beta discussion, so I put this as a separate discussion, even if it maybe related to the beta)

[Eldorado 26]

Oups, funny :-)
I never saw this effect but you are right: Underscore (_) does not work in this manner. It seems to declare the following characters to be searched in tag names immediately following a special character. (i.e. "_te" matches "=test", "~team" but not "#Master").

And I found an other character with a special meaning: Percent (%) declare the following characters to be searched anywhere in tag names. (i.e. "%te" matches "=test", "~team", "#Master", ...).

Up to now I only knew about Underscore to be the only special character that is matches in search phrases for note body text. Maybe one (important) EN developer loves Underscores and hates all the other non-alphanumerics with one exeption ;-)

@EN-Team: Maybe an insider can explain this to us users?

[Don Dz 165]

I just discovered the problem is even worse in Android (even more unexpected matches), but it appears to work properly in iOS.

Basically I am trying to follow the ascii sort order in order to sort tags the way I want them, but Evernote appears to not pay attention to the sorting rules too closely, it has some other sort order I don't quite understand.

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, Don Dz said:

when I enter the underscore, it shows all tags starting with the underscore AND  all tags star

 

18 minutes ago, Don Dz said:

but it appears to work properly in iOS

On IOS, the search is containing underscore
On Macs, the search is beginning with underscore, and seems to be working correctly

Just wondering if your issue relates to containing/beginning

[dconnet 529]

I didn't realize we had this until this thread... Looks like underscore is "match any one char" and percent is "match zero or more chars". (I haven't looked at the code, just observing pattern matches)

Sorting should be using the OS sort - in other words, like Explorer sorts.

[Don Dz 165]

4 hours ago, DTLow said:

Just wondering if your issue relates to containing/beginning

I did notice the issue of containing vs beginning in Android, but in Windows it doesn't appear related, so it seems some sort of bug (or maybe special character?)

[Don Dz 165]

4 hours ago, dconnet said:

I didn't realize we had this until this thread... Looks like underscore is "match any one char" and percent is "match zero or more chars". (I haven't looked at the code, just observing pattern matches)

Sorting should be using the OS sort - in other words, like Explorer sorts.

That may explains a few things.  I created a few random files in Explorer, and it does appear to sort like Evernote does for the most part.

I guess I can experimentally enter all those characters in the tag list just to see what they do.

[Don Dz 165]

Here is the full list of individual characters from my keyboard, sorted as tags by Evernote Windows:

' - " # $ % & ( ) * . / : ; ? @ [ \ ] ^ _ ` { | } ~ + < = >      0-9     a-z (case is ignored)

I have discovered that when I added the letter A after each one of them, the sort behavior of two of them changed:  both 'a and -a went to the bottom of the special stack tag list. 

It seems that those characters have no effect on sorting in the presence of other characters (except space).  Apparently the same in Windows Explorer., not sure on Android and iOS

 

[Don Dz 165]

4 hours ago, dconnet said:

Looks like underscore is "match any one char" and percent is "match zero or more chars". (I haven't looked at the code, just observing pattern matches)

I noticed something else.  The initial reported behavior happened when I had a number of tags starting with the underscore.  Now that I have removed it from all tags except one or two  test tags, the behavior does not occur. 

I am beginning to think it maybe a bug that depends on how often those characters appear in the tag list, rather than a feature.  I wasn't able to reproduce what Eldorado was mentioning, except I could get partial matches without the use of special characters.

[TdeV 88]

I have had tags with a leading underscore for (possibly) a couple of years.

One is named "_Unresolved". If I put an underscore in the tag box, the available tags do NOT appear (in alphabetical order). However, if I input "_Unr" the rest of the tag appears.

For me to find the tags with a leading underscore, I have to go to the Tag Menu.