Cannot get syntax to work

[Ken Jacobs]

I have two statuses I want to exclude from a filter: Closed or Done. Am I doing something wrong with the OR statement? The syntax below excludes Done but not Closed:

status != Done OR status != Closed

[Thomas Schlegel · Accepted solution]

Hi @Ken Jacobs,

try this:

status not in (Done, Closed)

[Ken Jacobs]

Thanks that worked! 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

For what it's worth,

status != Done OR status != Closed

does not work because it's logically wrong.  

If an issue is Done, it can't be Closed, so clause 2 returns true, and if it's Closed, it can't be done, so clause 1 returns true.   As one clause is always true and you've used OR, you are always going to get a true result. 

You needed to use AND, rather than OR, but Thomas' way of writing it is a lot more clear and easier to modify.

[Ken Jacobs]

Seems backwards to me but thanks for the insight!

[Ken Jacobs]

I thought the filer would see a status called "A" and a status called "B" and exclude both based on that alone. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Humans are often bad at logic, with their instincts leading them astray, especially when there are negatives in something.  "Is this a tiger?"  is an easier question to us than "is this not a small cat?" - the "not" causes us to have to do a lot more work to get the right answer.

I found the trick is to look at each clause individually when something doesn't work, then bolt them together one at a time to re-form the question.

[Ken Jacobs]

:)

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I should add that I learned this "humans are bad at logic" first hand, when stuffing up the first big development project I was supposed to be the main coder on. 

20 years later, I still have to step back and think "remember, you're not Viz's Mr Logic, your instincts here could be wrong".  For me, it's especially on searches and nested ifs.