Get all list items under a certain heading

Language:: Dataview
Program:: Obsidian
Link:: Reddit

Summary

Great discussion about querying specific parts of notes, ie list items under a certain heading

Code

Reddit Post

Query and filter items under a heading

I have many files with a reference heading in them, like this:

# Algorithms

Aliquam erat volutpat. Nunc eleifend leo vitae magna. In id erat non orci commodo lobortis. Proin neque massa, cursus ut, gravida ut, lobortis eget, lacus
## References

- Author 1: Book 1.
- Author 2: Book 2.

Now I'd like to use a query that collects all those list items under the references heading from across the files and shows them in one view with filename and references.

So how can I filter results under a heading?

You can extract all bullets points under a heading in dataview using something like:

TABLE bullet.text AS References
FROM #TagOfInterest
FLATTEN file.lists as bullet
WHERE meta(bullet.section).subpath = "References"

You just need to replace the FROM clause with whatever filter will narrow down to just the notes you're interested in (specific tags, folders, links, etc).

Do you know if / how I can group the results, for instance by filename?

Group by file.name should work, did you get an error or just no results? Once you group, you would also need to change the first line to:

TABLE rows.bullet.text

The reason is that once you group, you don't have a set of pages anymore - you have key (the value you grouped by), and rows (the set of pages that go with that group).

That just means you need to put rows. in front of things to get to the grouped page info.

That worked! Thank you very much! Here's the full query:

 | file.name | References |
| --------- | ---------- |


What does not work is the sorting. It won't sort by file-names descending.

Plus, the group-name is vertically centered, instead of aligned to the top of the cell. That makes it hard to read the results table.

Your sort should work... so I'm surprised it doesn't. Perhaps the group is interfering, so try putting it after the group like `SORT key desc`.

I also don't like how the group heading are always centered, but I'm not sure how to change it. Maybe there's a css way, but I haven't gone looking. I'll often switch to a LIST instead of a TABLE if I'm grouping because it usually looks better. You have to drop the `AS "References"`if you do that because there are no column headings in a list.

A last resort is to switch into full JavaScript and manually interfere with the table design... but that's a real step up in complexity - so not for the feint hearted, and not easy to explain over reddit comments 😉

Wow, that worked like a charm! Here's what the query looks like:


Your help is very much appreciated.

Sorting does not work, no matter what I write and where I put it (above or below "GROUP BY"). Even "SORT blablaxyz desc" will not be lamented.

And I think I have to deep dive into "dataviewjs" soon :)

Weird - I tried your query on my system, sort doesn't work above the group (which must re-sort them asc)... but it works fine below:

```
LIST rows.bullets.text
FROM "0-0 Inbox"
FLATTEN file.lists as bullets
WHERE meta(bullets.section).subpath = "testing"
GROUP BY file.name
SORT key desc
```

This is awesome! Thank you. Do you know why it doesn't create links to the files?

You'd have to group by file.link - instead of just the file.name - but then it should give the links.

Explanation

Result

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