Search

Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+F

Search objects in the current data layer using query language. This tool have different look, depending on your expert setting:

Expert mode off:

Expert mode on:

If you check add toolbar button, as soon as you click on Start Search, a button will be added to the Main Toolbar which will execute the defined search expression each time, you press the button. You can also set an own icon for this button in the Toolbar Preferences. As with any "button" you can always assign shortcut to it.

Keywords

Hover over keyword in search menu to get textual explanation with simple example, some additional info below:

Keyword	Supports ranges	Range separator	Description
id	yes	-	Search for objects with specific ids ([Help/Concepts/Object#Objectids])
version	yes	-	Search for objects with specific version ([Help/Concepts/Object#Objectversions]). version:0 is equivalent to keyword new. Note that version:-1 will match new objects.
type	no	n/a	Only 3 possible values: type:node, type:way, type:relation ([Help/Concepts/Object#NodesWaysRelations])
user	no	n/a	"anonymous" is a special word? i.e. user:anonymous
role
changeset	yes	-
nodes	yes	-	Search for objects with number of nodes within range. Note that nodes:-2 query won't match single nodes!
ways
tags	yes	-	Search for objects with tag count of tags within range ([Help/Concepts/Object#Tags]). Note that tags:-1 will also match tagless objects!
areasize
waylength
modified	no	n/a	Confusing name: will select (old and modified objects) or (completely new objects).
selected
incomplete
untagged	no	n/a	This modifier differs from tags:0 since it will count all "discardable" and "uninteresting tags" (description, attribution, source, source_ref, source:, comment, converted_by, watch, watch:,)! more info
closed
new
indownloadedarea
allindownloadedarea
inview
allinview
timestamp	yes	/	min/max pair with two notes. If min timestap is empty: use lowest possible date (1980). If max timestamp is empty: use current time.
nth
nth%
hasRole
parent
child

Examples

Some examples of queries:

• type:way selects all ways
• name:Herrengasse selects all elements with the given name
• name=Herrengasse same as above, but case sensitive
• "name"="Baker Street" same as above, but works also with special characters like white spaces in the value
• tag1=yes tag2=yes is equivalent to tag1=yes & tag2=yes
• type:way name:- selects all ways that do not have a name
• id:123465678 selects an object (way or node) with a particular id
• timestamp:2010-11-01/2010-12-01 selects object with last change in November 2010
• See also Help/Dialog/Filter#Examples

There is also a very under-used and under-documented feature that lets you enter a web URL (file://, http://, https://, ftp://) in the search field. JOSM will then attempt to load that URL, and select any objects that it finds referenced in that file. JOSM will look for XML tags "way", "node", and "relation" in the document, and use their id attribute. This means you can access another OSM file on your hard disk this way and have JOSM select all objects that are present in the file (provided they are present in JOSM's dataset too).

The special expressions selected and modified select all currently selected resp. all objects modified in the current session.

More examples are ​here

Some examples and search functions are only shown in expert mode. This includes the standard/regular expression/MapCSS selector radio button. When regular expression mode is selected any key or value field may be replaced with a regular expression enclosed in quotes.

See also

• Objects
• [Help/Dialog/Filter] allows you to save and combine multiple search patterns between your JOSM sessions
• JOSM supports Java Regex. For detailed Information see ​http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html
• mapcss selector syntax see Help/Styles/MapCSSImplementation

---

Back to Menu Edit
Back to Main Help