The search query parameter of the /rest/wikis/{wikiName}/children REST resource is documented as filtering child pages by name or title. In practice, searching for a term that appears only in a page title returns no result.

Steps to reproduce

Create a top-level page with the following details:

1. • Space name: PSDTP
   • Page: PSDTP.WebHome
   • Title: Platform: Software Development Tools & Practices

     Call the following URLs:

1. • GET /rest/wikis/xwiki/children?search=PSD
   • GET /rest/wikis/xwiki/children?search=Platform
   • GET /rest/wikis/xwiki/children?search=software

Expected results

PSDTP.WebHome is returned for each request because the search term appears in the space name or page title.

Actual results

• search=PSD returns PSDTP.WebHome.

• search=Platform and search=software return no result.

Analysis

WikiChildrenResourceImpl delegates the search to NestedPagesPageHierarchy. The ChildrenQuery#matching(String) documentation says that matching filters child pages by name or title.

In XWiki 17.10.9, the generated HQL for wiki-level children filters on space.name:

if (this.parentReference.getType() == EntityType.WIKI) {
statement += " AND LOWER(space.name) LIKE ";
} else {
statement += " AND ((doc.name <> 'WebHome' AND LOWER(doc.name) LIKE ) OR"
+ " (doc.name = 'WebHome' AND LOWER(space.name) LIKE ))";
}

The query does not match against doc.title. The same title matching limitation applies to the page-level children resource when hierarchy=nestedpages is used, because it uses the same PageHierarchy implementation.

The endpoint was introduced in 16.4.0RC1 as part of XWIKI-14422. The issue is still present in XWiki 17.10.9.

This appears related to XWIKI-23819, which reports that the Children view’s document-title filter matches the document reference instead of the title. The REST resource has a separate implementation.