[Type 2] Support range filter operators (GreaterThan, LessThan, Between) in PDFRequestOptions.vf() for view filters
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Assessment
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Newbie friendliness
- 45/100
Research direction
Start by reading the PDFRequestOptions.vf() entry point and the existing RequestOptions.filter.add() implementation. Determine how operators and range values should be represented for PDF view filters, then verify the expected behavior for GreaterThan, LessThan, and Between against the described continuous-filter use case.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
Summary
Add support for range filter operators (GreaterThan, LessThan, Between) in PDF view filters using .vf() method
Request Type
Type 2: add a REST API and support it in tsc.
This is functionality that exists in Tableau dashboards (continuous range filters) but cannot be properly controlled through the PDF generation API.
Description
Current Limitation
When using PDFRequestOptions.vf() to apply view filters for PDF generation, there is no way to specify filter operators such as GreaterThan, LessThan, or Between. The current implementation only supports:
- Single discrete values:
pdf_opts.vf('Region', 'West') - Multiple discrete values (IN operator):
pdf_opts.vf('Category', 'Furniture,Technology') - Ambiguous comma-separated syntax:
pdf_opts.vf('Score', '10,50')
Problem
For continuous range filters configured in Tableau dashboards, the comma-separated syntax '10,50' is ambiguous and may be interpreted as:
IN (10, 50)- only values exactly 10 or 50BETWEEN 10 AND 50- range from 10 to 50
Currently, there is no way to explicitly specify that a filter should use BETWEEN, GreaterThan, or other range operators, even though these filters work perfectly when using the dashboard interactively.
Proposed Solution
Add operator support to .vf() similar to how RequestOptions.filter.add() works for API queries:
Current API (RequestOptions filtering):
req_option = TSC.RequestOptions()
req_option.filter.add(TSC.Filter(
TSC.RequestOptions.Field.Score,
TSC.RequestOptions.Operator.GreaterThanOrEqual,
'10'
))
Proposed enhancement for PDF view filters:
pdf_opts = TSC.PDFRequestOptions()
pdf_opts.vf('SCORE', '10', operator=TSC.RequestOptions.Operator.GreaterThanOrEqual)
# OR
pdf_opts.vf('SCORE', min_value='10', max_value='50') # For BETWEEN
Use Case & Value
- Frequency: This is needed any time programmatic PDF generation requires filtering on continuous numeric or date fields
- Current workaround: None - users must either accept ambiguous behavior or modify dashboard filters, which affects all users
- Work saved: Eliminates need to create separate dashboards with hardcoded filters just for PDF generation
- Business impact: Critical for automated reporting where PDFs need to show data for specific ranges (e.g., "Show only high-risk scores 80-100", "Show sales data > $1M")
Example Scenario
A Tableau dashboard has a continuous slider filter for SCORE (range: 0-100). When generating automated weekly PDFs:
- Needed: Filter to show only scores BETWEEN 10 AND 50
- Current behavior: Passing
[10, 50]may show only exact values 10 and 50 - Expected behavior: Should show all values in the range 10-50, just like moving the slider in the web UI
This feature would bring view filter capabilities in line with the existing RequestOptions.filter API and match the functionality available in the Tableau web interface.
- Dominant language
- Python
- Stars
- 716
- Forks
- 446
- Avg merge
- 8d 8h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 2
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
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