[API] Formula filter for linked records not returning any results

[Michael_Cetrulo]

I have the base https://airtable.com/shrk4QtqMfI5yJdYr with two tables: Posts and Categories; The Posts table has one column which is a link to Categories and another which is a lookup on Categories.

The data is as follows:

{
    "records": [
        {
            "id": "rec0Wx3tdBsuBjHrV",
            "fields": {
                "Name": "Post 1",
                "Categories": [
                    "rec7PDGo7c2GP9wu2"
                ],
                "Category names": [
                    "Category 1"
                ]
            },
            "createdTime": "2018-11-22T20:24:15.000Z"
        },
        {
            "id": "rec334VYelorur9Ix",
            "fields": {
                "Name": "Post 3"
            },
            "createdTime": "2018-11-22T20:24:15.000Z"
        },
        {
            "id": "recIJhElGuUrFdvVn",
            "fields": {
                "Name": "Post 2",
                "Categories": [
                    "rec7PDGo7c2GP9wu2",
                    "reccMvdKsHB36MN3A"
                ],
                "Category names": [
                    "Category 1",
                    "Category 2"
                ]
            },
            "createdTime": "2018-11-22T20:24:15.000Z"
        }
    ]
}

The following request returns only record rec0Wx3tdBsuBjHrV (it should return rec0Wx3tdBsuBjHrV and recIJhElGuUrFdvVn since both have “Category 1”):

https://api.airtable.com/v0/appLEqjgwtfud3r86/Posts?filterByFormula={Category names}='Category 1'

And this request returns no results at all:

https://api.airtable.com/v0/appLEqjgwtfud3r86/Posts?filterByFormula={Categories}='rec0Wx3tdBsuBjHrV'

Although it clearly should return at least one.

[Neil_Devas]

Has this been solved? I am having the same issue.

[Chinara_James]

Hi,
From my understanding of the API you cannot retrieve linked records using filterByFormula. That is not the purpose of it. filterByFormula is used to sort/filter record data in the target table. So filtering by a field in another table isn’t going to work. You could, I suppose, filter by the linked column using the actual record IDs that is saved in the column but I have never tried that.

I work with the API extensively and have written a tutorial on how to get linked records using the API.
You can check it out and let me know if it helps.

Chinara James – 3 Feb 19

How to get linked records using the Airtable API | Chinara James

Getting linked records using Airtable API can be a bit tricky, here I break it down step by step

[Emin_Saral]

It’s possible:

API call to match Record_IDs on Linked columns API

filterByFormula allows you to filter records based on the values that you see in the table. So in this case, you could use filterByFormula using the values from the primary field from the records you want to search by. For example, if the primary field from the ManufacturerTable is “Manufacturer A,” and the linked field column in the CarTable is called “Manufacturer,” you could then use the following formula to get all CarTable records where the Manufacturer is “Manufacturer A”: filterByFormu…

[Dmitrii_N]

if linked record does not allow to link multiply values search by formula is possible like that:
ARRAYJOIN({columnName}) = “requiredValue”

If multiply values are possible, I did not tried that but surch by substring wit a help of MID, LEFT, SEARCH may help