I am working my way through the book (big fan of!) and have come across a scenario in the "Gab" app that I have not been able to figure out. I would like to limit the roster of available users to chat with to a list of users matching a certain criteria, say, email address, user name, etc ...

I modified the reference to jabber:iq:roster to use jabber:iq:search in Gab.js:

From:
var iq = $iq({type: 'get'}).c('query', {xmlns: 'jabber:iq:roster'});

To:
var iq = $iq({to: "vjud.our_url", type: "set"})
.c("query", {xmlns: "jabber:iq:search"})
.c("x", {xmlns: "jabber:x:data", type: "submit"})
.c("field", {var: "user"})
.c("value", 'smith*');

I then reload the page, but do not receive any search results. I submitted the following via the "Peek" app and the expected search results were returned:

<iq to='vjud.our_url' type='set' xmlns='jabber:client'>
<query xmlns='jabber:iq:search'>
<x xmlns='jabber:x:data' type='submit'>
<field var='user'><value>smith*</value></field>
</x>
</query>
</iq>

I'm wondering if there is a parameter of some sort that I am missing? Does anyone have any ideas or advice?

Thanks

jabber:iq:search was created for jabber user directory services, which aren't commonly deployed these days. You can't directly query the remote roster as you are trying.

What you can do is store the roster when you request it and then write your own function which returns jids matching a pattern. Of course, this won't work for searching by email address, as the server won't know them.

To do email searches you could query the vcards of everyone in the roster, which may have the user's personal information including emails, but only if they've set their vcard.

Thanks for the replies! Good to know that I was trying to use the jabber:iq:search incorrectly. Pattern matching on jid's seems like a workable solution. Thanks much!