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/AWS1/CL_GML=>SEARCHGAMESESSIONS()

About SearchGameSessions

Retrieves all active game sessions that match a set of search criteria and sorts them into a specified order.

This operation is not designed to continually track game session status because that practice can cause you to exceed your API limit and generate errors. Instead, configure an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic to receive notifications from a matchmaker or a game session placement queue.

When searching for game sessions, you specify exactly where you want to search and provide a search filter expression, a sort expression, or both. A search request can search only one fleet, but it can search all of a fleet's locations.

This operation can be used in the following ways:

  • To search all game sessions that are currently running on all locations in a fleet, provide a fleet or alias ID. This approach returns game sessions in the fleet's home Region and all remote locations that fit the search criteria.

  • To search all game sessions that are currently running on a specific fleet location, provide a fleet or alias ID and a location name. For location, you can specify a fleet's home Region or any remote location.

Use the pagination parameters to retrieve results as a set of sequential pages.

If successful, a GameSession object is returned for each game session that matches the request. Search finds game sessions that are in ACTIVE status only. To retrieve information on game sessions in other statuses, use DescribeGameSessions .

To set search and sort criteria, create a filter expression using the following game session attributes. For game session search examples, see the Examples section of this topic.

  • gameSessionId -- A unique identifier for the game session. You can use either a GameSessionId or GameSessionArn value.

  • gameSessionName -- Name assigned to a game session. Game session names do not need to be unique to a game session.

  • gameSessionProperties -- A set of key-value pairs that can store custom data in a game session. For example: {"Key": "difficulty", "Value": "novice"}. The filter expression must specify the GameProperty -- a Key and a string Value to search for the game sessions.

    For example, to search for the above key-value pair, specify the following search filter: gameSessionProperties.difficulty = "novice". All game property values are searched as strings.

    For examples of searching game sessions, see the ones below, and also see Search game sessions by game property.

  • maximumSessions -- Maximum number of player sessions allowed for a game session.

  • creationTimeMillis -- Value indicating when a game session was created. It is expressed in Unix time as milliseconds.

  • playerSessionCount -- Number of players currently connected to a game session. This value changes rapidly as players join the session or drop out.

  • hasAvailablePlayerSessions -- Boolean value indicating whether a game session has reached its maximum number of players. It is highly recommended that all search requests include this filter attribute to optimize search performance and return only sessions that players can join.

Returned values for playerSessionCount and hasAvailablePlayerSessions change quickly as players join sessions and others drop out. Results should be considered a snapshot in time. Be sure to refresh search results often, and handle sessions that fill up before a player can join.

All APIs by task

Method Signature

IMPORTING

Optional arguments:

IV_FLEETID TYPE /AWS1/GMLFLEETIDORARN /AWS1/GMLFLEETIDORARN

A unique identifier for the fleet to search for active game sessions. You can use either the fleet ID or ARN value. Each request must reference either a fleet ID or alias ID, but not both.

IV_ALIASID TYPE /AWS1/GMLALIASIDORARN /AWS1/GMLALIASIDORARN

A unique identifier for the alias associated with the fleet to search for active game sessions. You can use either the alias ID or ARN value. Each request must reference either a fleet ID or alias ID, but not both.

IV_LOCATION TYPE /AWS1/GMLLOCATIONSTRINGMODEL /AWS1/GMLLOCATIONSTRINGMODEL

A fleet location to search for game sessions. You can specify a fleet's home Region or a remote location. Use the Amazon Web Services Region code format, such as us-west-2.

IV_FILTEREXPRESSION TYPE /AWS1/GMLNONZEROANDMAXSTRING /AWS1/GMLNONZEROANDMAXSTRING

String containing the search criteria for the session search. If no filter expression is included, the request returns results for all game sessions in the fleet that are in ACTIVE status.

A filter expression can contain one or multiple conditions. Each condition consists of the following:

  • Operand -- Name of a game session attribute. Valid values are gameSessionName, gameSessionId, gameSessionProperties, maximumSessions, creationTimeMillis, playerSessionCount, hasAvailablePlayerSessions.

  • Comparator -- Valid comparators are: =, <>, <, >, <=, >=.

  • Value -- Value to be searched for. Values may be numbers, boolean values (true/false) or strings depending on the operand. String values are case sensitive and must be enclosed in single quotes. Special characters must be escaped. Boolean and string values can only be used with the comparators = and <>. For example, the following filter expression searches on gameSessionName: "FilterExpression": "gameSessionName = 'Matt\'s Awesome Game 1'".

To chain multiple conditions in a single expression, use the logical keywords AND, OR, and NOT and parentheses as needed. For example: x AND y AND NOT z, NOT (x OR y).

Session search evaluates conditions from left to right using the following precedence rules:

  1. =, <>, <, >, <=, >=

  2. Parentheses

  3. NOT

  4. AND

  5. OR

For example, this filter expression retrieves game sessions hosting at least ten players that have an open player slot: "maximumSessions>=10 AND hasAvailablePlayerSessions=true".

IV_SORTEXPRESSION TYPE /AWS1/GMLNONZEROANDMAXSTRING /AWS1/GMLNONZEROANDMAXSTRING

Instructions on how to sort the search results. If no sort expression is included, the request returns results in random order. A sort expression consists of the following elements:

  • Operand -- Name of a game session attribute. Valid values are gameSessionName, gameSessionId, gameSessionProperties, maximumSessions, creationTimeMillis, playerSessionCount, hasAvailablePlayerSessions.

  • Order -- Valid sort orders are ASC (ascending) and DESC (descending).

For example, this sort expression returns the oldest active sessions first: "SortExpression": "creationTimeMillis ASC". Results with a null value for the sort operand are returned at the end of the list.

IV_LIMIT TYPE /AWS1/GMLPOSITIVEINTEGER /AWS1/GMLPOSITIVEINTEGER

The maximum number of results to return. Use this parameter with NextToken to get results as a set of sequential pages. The maximum number of results returned is 20, even if this value is not set or is set higher than 20.

IV_NEXTTOKEN TYPE /AWS1/GMLNONZEROANDMAXSTRING /AWS1/GMLNONZEROANDMAXSTRING

A token that indicates the start of the next sequential page of results. Use the token that is returned with a previous call to this operation. To start at the beginning of the result set, do not specify a value.

RETURNING

OO_OUTPUT TYPE REF TO /AWS1/CL_GMLSRCHGAMESESSSOUT /AWS1/CL_GMLSRCHGAMESESSSOUT