zulip/templates/zerver/api/construct-narrow.md

Construct a narrow

A narrow is a set of filters for Zulip messages, that can be based on many different factors (like sender, stream, topic, search keywords, etc.). Narrows are used in various places in the the Zulip API (most importantly, in the API for fetching messages).

It is simplest to explain the algorithm for encoding a search as a narrow using a single example. Consider the following search query (written as it would be entered in the Zulip webapp's search box). It filters for messages sent on stream announce, not sent by iago@zulip.com, and containing the phrase cool sunglasses:

stream:announce -sender:iago@zulip.com cool sunglasses

This query would be JSON-encoded for use in the Zulip API using JSON as a list of simple objects, as follows:

[
    {
        "operator": "stream",
        "operand": "announce"
    },
    {
        "operator": "sender",
        "operand": "iago@zulip.com",
        "negated": true
    },
    {
        "operator": "search",
        "operand": "cool sunglasses"
    }
]

The full set of search/narrowing options supported by the Zulip API is documented in the Zulip Help Center article on search. There are a few additional options, new in Zulip 2.1, that we don't document there because they are primarily useful to API clients:

• sender:1234: Search messages sent by user ID 1234.
• stream:1234: Search messages sent to the stream with ID 123.
• pm-with:1234: Search the private message conversation between you and user ID 1234.
• pm-with:1234,5678: Search the private message conversation between you, user ID 1234, and user ID 5678.
• group-pm-with:1234: Search all (group) private messages that include user ID 1234.
• pm-with:1234,5678: Search all (group) private messages that include user ID 1234 and user ID 5678.

The operands for these search options must be encoded either as an integer ID or a JSON list of integer IDs. For example, to query messages sent by a user 1234 to a PM thread with yourself, user 1234, and user 5678, the correct JSON-encoded query is:

[
    {
        "operator": "pm-with",
        "operand": [1234, 5678]
    },
    {
        "operator": "sender",
        "operand": 1234
    }
]