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jira filter != doesn't find empty values

Robert Nadon

Hi all,

When I create a filter where field != value, the results do not show field = EMPTY issues.

A workaround is to do (field != value OR field = EMPTY) but I was told that this was not the way it used to be so I was wondering if there is a setting for that.

Thanks!

Robert

Accepted answers

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

No, it hasn't changed.

"Does not equal" is not quite the same as "empty" because != says you're looking for a specific value to not be there. If there's no values to look for, you can't say that your selection isn't there because there's nothing to look for.

Well, not since JIRA 3, which didn't have JQL, so you didn't have != or empty.

All comments

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

No, it hasn't changed.

Robert Nadon

Thanks, that was what I thought. I will tell them to use the workaround I listed above.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

It's a little bit confusing for humans, because of our fuzzy thinking. Even a "yes or no" question really has three "answers" - yes, no, and not answered.

My friend explained it by saying "show me a picture of your black cat", then "show me a picture of all your cats who are not black", then "show me a picture of your dog who is not black". I don't have a dog, so I have to look for "empty" rather than "not black", because there's no dog there to not be black. (I love English negatives. Not)

Robert Nadon

Dang humans. Makes perfect sense to me, but my customer is still not happy. His concern is that in the future he will forget to use the "OR field = EMPTY" and miss records in his reports. I told him I could change the field to required and create a dummy value (called it "no value") and set that as default. Then go through with bulk change and find all issues with EMPTY values and change them to "no value", but I really do not like that solution as it adds even more clutter in my instance. Any thoughts on that solution?

Dale Keller

One would think the != Dog would bring back every value, including a non-value as that is not Dog. To exclude empty you should have to state != Dog and is not EMPTY. That's the logical solution to any query!!!

Paz Balaban

I'm facing the same issue. I need all results that are not 'Dog' , but i want to include all 'None'/Empty results as well.
Can someone help me with the syntax?

labels != Dog OR labels = None
Doesn't do the trick and adding brackets doesn't help either.

Robert G. Nadon

labels != Dog OR labels is EMPTY

is the correct syntax. There is no "None"

Rob Hickey

Thanks for the syntax help everyone! This worked for me:

status not in (Done, Rejected) AND 'Customer(S) Reporting' is EMPTY

Rob Hickey

Hello Everyone - thanks for the syntax references. This worked for me:

status not in (Done, Rejected) AND 'Customer(S) Reporting' is EMPTY

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