Pw Pages

ProcessWire Pages & Selectors Playbook

CRITICAL RULE: Before using selectors in API calls, always verify the available API methods by consulting .agents/docs/index.md. Never hallucinate API methods.

Selectors are the foundational querying language in ProcessWire. They are simple strings of text used in $pages->find(), $pages->get(), $page->children(), $page->siblings(), and even for filtering arrays and fields.

Anatomy of a Selector

A standard selector consists of a field, an operator, and a value.

$pages->find("template=product");

Fields can be combined natively in one string. Commas , act as AND.

$pages->find("template=product, parent=/shop/, get_price>100");

1. Operators Reference

ProcessWire offers a highly flexible set of operators.

Basic & Numeric

• = : Equal to
• != : Not equal to (or use negation like !body*=word)
• < / <= : Less than (or equal to)
• > / >= : Greater than (or equal to)

Text Matching

_Note: Using _=, ~=heavily relies on MySQL FULLTEXT indexes (typically 4+ chars required, ignores stop-words). Use%= if you need to match short strings or stop-words.*

• *= : Contains exact phrase / text (words must be sequential).
• ~= : Contains all words (order independent).
• %= : Contains phrase/text LIKE (SQL LIKE equivalent, no length restrictions).
• ^= : Starts with text.
• $= : Ends with text.
• ~|=: Contains any words.
• **=: Partial word matching (useful for live searches).

2. OR Logic

You can specify OR logic on fields, values, or entire groups.

OR Values: Pipe | separates possible values.

$pages->find("template=article|news");

OR Fields: Pipe | separates possible fields.

$pages->find("title|summary*=bitcoin");

OR Groups (Parentheses): Specify multiple full conditions where only one group needs to match.

$pages->find("template=product, stock>0, (featured_from<=today, featured_to>=today), (highlighted=1)");

3. Sorting & Limits

Sorting: Use sort=field. Precede with a minus - for descending order.

$pages->find("template=news, sort=-published_date, sort=title");

(Note: $pages->find() defaults to MySQL text relevance if no sort is provided. Always provide a sort when order matters!)

Limit/Pagination:

$pages->find("template=skyscraper, limit=50"); // Used natively with pagination modules

4. Traversing Data (Sub-selectors & Count)

You can dive deep into complex fields directly from the selector.

Count Selectors: Target pages based on the quantity inside a multi-value field.

$pages->find("images.count>=3");

Subfield Selectors: Query inner properties of complex fields (Page Reference, Repeater, Image, etc).

$pages->find("buildings.feet_high>1000, buildings.year_built<1980");

Matching the exact same row (@): If the field is a multi-value field (e.g. Repeaters), the standard subfield selector might match feet_high from row A, and year_built from row B. To force the selector to match BOTH properties within the same exact row, use @:

$pages->find("template=house, @categories.name=modern, @categories.featured=1");

Sub-selectors [...] : A sub-selector runs a query on the related field dynamically.

// Find products whose company has >5 locations, and one location is in Finland
$pages->find("template=product, company=[locations>5, locations.title%=Finland]");

5. Security & Access Control

By default, database-querying selectors (find(), children()) exclude hidden, unpublished, or access-restricted pages. $pages->get() is the exception (assumes include=all).

You can override these exclusions:

• include=hidden : Allows hidden pages.
• include=unpublished : Allows both hidden and unpublished.
• include=all : Overrides all restrictions (hidden, unpublished, access control).
• check_access=0 : Disables role-based access checks for the query, but still excludes unpublished pages.

6. Sanitizing User Input

Always sanitize user input before passing it into a selector.

// Integers:
$year = (int) $input->get->year;

// Arbitrary string values:
$k = $sanitizer->selectorValue($input->get->keyword);
$results = $pages->find("title|body~=$k");

7. Creating Pages

Always use Page instances to insert new content.

$p = new \ProcessWire\Page();
$p->template = "article";
$p->parent = $pages->get("/articles/"); // MUST have a parent
$p->name = $sanitizer->pageName("My New Article!"); // URL slug
$p->title = "My New Article!";
$p->save();

// Alternatively, use the shortcut:
$p = $pages->add("article", "/articles/", "my-new-article", [
    'title' => 'My New Article!'
]);

8. Editing & Updating Pages

You must call ->of(false) to turn off output formatting before saving a page that has already been loaded from the database, otherwise textformatters might corrupt data.

$p = $pages->get(1234);
$p->of(false); // TURN OFF OUTPUT FORMATTING
$p->title = "Updated Title";
$p->my_custom_field = "New Value";
$p->save();

9. Deleting & Trashing Pages

Use $pages->trash() to move a page to the trash securely. Only use $pages->delete() when absolutely necessary as it skips the trash.

$p = $pages->get(1234);
if ($p->id && $p->trashable()) {
    $pages->trash($p);
}

10. Performance Tips

• Always use limit= on $pages->find() for large datasets
• Use $pages->count($selector) instead of $pages->find($selector)->count() — avoids loading all pages into memory
• Prefer indexed fields first (id, name, template) in selectors
• Call $pages->uncacheAll() after processing large batches
• Use $page->of(false) before modifying output-formatted pages