Odoo API search criteria not fully recognised - odoo

Question

I am calling the Odoo object/search API and am trying to return a list of IR records for a list of external IDs.
The model I am searching is ir.model.data and want to match the following:
model = res.country.state
complete_name = l10n_uk.state_uk_99
The search criteria I am using, in PHP is:
$ir_criteria = array(
array('model', '=', 'res.country.state'),
array('complete_name', 'in', 'l10n_uk.state_uk_99'),
);
What I am getting back, is all ir.model.data records that match the model, but not limited to the given complete_name.
Why wouldn't that be working?
In the "External Identifiers" admin page, I do get the right result - for a single external ID at least - by searching for:
Model Name = res.country.state
Module = l10n_uk
External Identifier = state_uk_99
so that might be exactly what I need to search for through the API?

Answer 1

This is the search criteria I am using to search model ir.model.data, which is equivalent to the above:
array(
array("model", "=", "res.country.state"),
array("module", "=", "l10n_uk"),
array("name", "in", array("state_uk_99")),
)
The "complete_name" is split into module and name. Where there is no module, it is set to "" in the search criteria.
If I need to search over several modules at once, which seems to be a need if the data has been imported over time in different ways, then reverse polish notation can be used. So pulling out states 'l10n_uk.state_uk_99', 'l10n_uk.state_uk_98' and 'base.state_us_10' can be done with this search criteria:
array(
array("model", "=", "res.country.state"),
// The following element repeated for number of modules minus 1.
'|',
// The first module.
'&',
array("module", "=", "l10n_uk"),
array("name", "in", array("state_uk_99", "state_uk_98")),
// The second module.
'&',
array("module", "=", "base"),
array("name", "in", array("state_us_10")),
// Further modules, as needed.
)
That returns the database IDs of the external IDs, which are used to fetch the res_id of those external IDs, which points to the state records of res.county.state
It would be nice if each interfaced system had full control over its own set of external IDs on OpenERP, but it doesn't, so we are always stuck with the potential for a good old mix of modules and formats on the external IDs, all created by importing data in different ways.