> For clean Markdown of any page, append .md to the page URL.
> For a complete documentation index, see https://contentful.com/developers/docs/llms.txt.
> For AI client integration (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), connect to the MCP server at https://contentful.com/_mcp/server.

# Advanced Filtering and Searching

> This guide shows you how to use the Android and Java API to filter, sort and order entries | Advanced filtering and searching

This section will describe advanced usage of the Android and Java API, in order to filter, sort and order responses. The
upcoming samples are using the following setup: `space id = cfexampleapi` and `api token = b4c0n73n7fu1`.

## Searching

In order query for all items, containing the complete string `nyan` in symbol or text fields.

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAEntry.class)
    .where("query", "nyan")
    .all();
```

## Inexact searches

If you want to search for just a part of a text, you could use a `match` operator. Keep in mind, you have to define
the field to be matched, so it won't work on all fields automatically. Also for this request to work, you have to
specify a `content type` to look for:

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAEntry.class)
    .where("content_type", "cat")
    .where("fields.name[match]", "yan")
    .all();
```

## Order

In order to order a result by a field, you need to specify `order` as a `where` selector. Please make sure, that you
either just query for fields in `sys`, or specify a `content type` to look for.

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAEntry.class)
    .where("order", "sys.id")
    .all();
```

If you want to invert the result order, feel free to add a `-` in front of the field to be looked for:

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAEntry.class)
    .where("order", "-sys.id")
    .all();
```

Having a result ordered in more than one level, take a look at this snippet:

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAEntry.class)
    .where("order", "sys.contentType.sys.id,sys.id")
    .all();
```

## Limit

To retrieve a given amount of elements, you can use the `limit` parameter.

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAEntry.class)
    .where("limit", "1")
    .all();
```

Ignoring the first entries, can be accomplished by using the `skip` parameter. This can be used nicely for paging, by
skipping the first 13 elements:

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAEntry.class)
    .where("skip", "13")
    .all();
```

## Include

If you do not want the query to return only top level entries, and not its children, you could use the
parameter `include` with the value `0`. Otherwise this value will be used to determine how many hierarchy levels
to be returned. If not set, it will return 1, only the first level of children.

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAEntry.class)
    .where("include", "0")
    .all();
```

## Sequences

Do you want to get elements based on a set of possibilities? Then you came to the right place:

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAEntry.class)
    .where("sys.id[in]", "finn,jake")
    .all();
```

Will return all elements whose `sys.id` is either *finn* or *jake*.

If you want to invert this query, you would use the a `nin` (for *`not`*`in`) operator in the query:

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAEntry.class)
    .where("content_type", "cat")
    .where("sys.id[nin]", "nyancat")
    .all();
```

## Existence

Querying for all entries having a specific *field* set to something (aka it is existing), you would issue a request
like:

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAEntry.class)
    .where("sys.id[exists]", "false") // entries without id
    .all();
```

## Mathematical comparisons

Contentful is also able to query entries, based on a mathematical comparison operator:

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAEntry.class)
    .where("content_type", "cat")
    .where("fields.birthday[lte]", "1980-01-01")
    .all();
```

This will return all entries with the `birthday` `less or equal then` *1980-01-01*. Other operators are available too,
[see REST API doc](/references/content-delivery-api/overview)

## Inequality

If you want to filter out specific items, you should be thinking about using the `[ne]` operator:

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAEntry.class)
    .where("sys.id[ne]", "nyancat")
    .all();
```

## Location

Did you ever want to query based on a real world location? This is how to do this in java:

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAEntry.class)
    .where("content_type", "1t9IbcfdCk6m04uISSsaIK")
    .where("fields.center[near]", "38,-122")
    .all();
```

Which will return the list of results ordered by distance, the closest first.

If you would rather find out if there are entries in a specific area of the world, you could be using something like this:

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAEntry.class)
    .where("content_type", "1t9IbcfdCk6m04uISSsaIK")
    .where("fields.center[within]", "40,-124,36,-120")
    .all();
```

returning all elements whose `center` is in the given area. (Do not forget the `content_type`)

## Assets mimetype

This last example will tell you how to query for assets, which are only of a specific `mimetype`:

```java
CDAArray found = client.fetch(CDAAsset.class)
    .where("mimetype_group", "image")
    .all();
```

## Next steps

* [Advanced methods for retrieving entries](/sdks/android/tutorials/advanced-types)

> This guide shows you how to use the Android and Java API to filter, sort and order entries | Advanced filtering and searching