Proposal: Reusable Query Files for Dataview

[ChrisM0815]

Hi! I often have multiple notes where the query logic is mostly the same, except for some dynamic values like this.name, this.aliases, etc. As a result, I end up with many copies of identical Dataview queries in my vault.

It would be very helpful if Dataview queries could be stored in separate text files (e.g., with a .dataview extension) and invoked from other notes via a simple reference. This reduces duplication and also improves maintainability (editing the query in one place would update all uses)

Ideally, this could work using Obsidian’s native embed syntax, e.g., ![[my-query.dataview]]. If that’s not feasible due to plugin limitations, it might be implemented similarly to how the Embed Code File plugin handles embedding code.

I have seen this is possible for .js files with dv.view but haven' t found anything for loading non .js files that contain basic dataview queries.

[holroy]

dv.view() is most likely most used for this kind of functionality, but you do also have some dv.io functions which could be interesting as they can load files and give that load a context of any file you like.

[ChrisM0815]

Thank you for the tip with dv.io. I got it to work this way. It still would be great if there was a way to do this without JavaScript, although I haven't really noticed any difference in loading time.

In case someone else is looking for this functionality, here's how it can be implemented with JavaScript queries:
File that loads the query:

let path = "/testquery.md"
let query = await dv.io.load(path)
let result = await dv.tryQuery(query);
dv.span(result.values)

Example File with query (testquery.md):

LIST
WHERE 
icontains(file.name,this.file.name)
or
any(map(file.aliases, (x) => icontains(x,this.file.name))) 
or
any(map(file.aliases, (x) => 
any(map(this.file.aliases, (y) => icontains(x,y)))
))
or
any(map(this.file.aliases, (x) => icontains(file.name,x)))
and file != this.file

The query needs to be stored without the dataview block in the .md file. This example query lists all files where the name or aliases contain the name or aliases of the file with the embedded query.