Filters define the criteria used to select the objects that are retrieved from a Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) site database. Functionally, one or more filters can be set on a particular container before the container is populated by your application.
There are two classes of filters:
To assist you in configuring a filter, the SMS API provides you with the ability to add tokens to the filter. Within a filter, multiple tokens can be connected and joined using the logical operators, AND or OR. There are two types of token: expression and control.
An expression token defines how to search for objects that have a specified relationship to a determined value for a given attribute. An expression token consists of an attribute, a relational operator, and a comparison value. The relational operator (such as "is equal to" or "is like") defines how the specified value should be compared with the actual value stored for the given attribute.
A control token can be a logical operator or parentheses. A logical operator connects two expression tokens, two subclauses, or a combination of an expression and a subclause. A logical operator defines the relationship between two adjacent expressions or subclauses.