Magento 2: difference between Api\SearchCriteriaBuilder and Api\Search\SearchCriteriaBuilder?

Question

Those two classes are very similar but I don't get the differences and why should one be used instead of another ?

• Magento\Framework\Api\Search\SearchCriteriaBuilder => a handful of references in the Magento native code.
• Magento\Framework\Api\SearchCriteriaBuilder => 200+ references

To me, there must be a good reason why the first one has been created but I don't get why.

Anyone can enlight me ?

Answer 1

They build different objects:

• Magento\Framework\Api\SearchCriteria
• Magento\Framework\Api\Search\SearchCriteria (which extends the former)

The Search/SearchCriteria has two additional methods:

/**
 * @return string
 */
public function getRequestName();

/**
 * @param string $requestName
 * @return $this
 */
public function setRequestName($requestName);

This request name is used by UI components to identify the search request. If I understand it correctly, the interfaces in Api/Search are meant for actual searches by the user, while the common Api/SearchResults and Api/SearchCriteria interfaces are used for any repositories (i.e. collection filtering and sorting)