The order in which selector is written when using 'owner' selector changes the results

[jlahijani]

I have the following structure on my site:

- /orders/ (orders template)
  - order-1 (order template)
  - order-2 (order template)
  - order-3 (order template)
  - ...

order template has:
- fulfillment_orders repeater

repeater_fulfillment_orders template has:
- shipments repeater

repeater_shipments template has:
- payloads repeater

Another way to say the above would be like this:

/orders/
  /order-1/
    - fulfillment_orders (repeater)
      - shipments (repeater)
        - payloads (repeater)

Now let's say I want to get all of the payloads where the order is not a "test" with some other things. I would do this:

$selector = [
  "template=repeater_payloads",
  "check_access=0",
  "status!=unpublished",
  "sort=datetime",
  "payload_event_type.name=outgoing",
  "payload_type.name=shipped-order",
  "datetime>=2025-05-01 00:00:00",
  "datetime<=2025-05-15 23:59:59",

  // 3 owners (ORDER LEVEL)
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.fulfillment_orders.owner.parent=/orders/",
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.fulfillment_orders.owner.template=order",
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.fulfillment_orders.owner.status!=unpublished",
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.fulfillment_orders.owner.test=0",
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.fulfillment_orders.owner.provider=foo",

  // 2 owners (FULFILLMENT_ORDERS LEVEL)
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.template=repeater_fulfillment_orders",
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.status!=unpublished",
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.location=bar",

  // 1 owner (SHIPMENTS LEVEL)
  "payloads.owner.template=repeater_shipments",
  "payloads.owner.status!=unpublished",
];
// debugger says this translates to 5 sql queries

echo $pages->count(implode(",", $selector));

The above selector gives the correct results.

However if I swapped the positions of "1 owner" and "3 owners" like this:

$selector = [
  "template=repeater_payloads",
  "check_access=0",
  "status!=unpublished",
  "sort=datetime",
  "payload_event_type.name=outgoing",
  "payload_type.name=shipped-order",
  "datetime>=2025-05-01 00:00:00",
  "datetime<=2025-05-15 23:59:59",

  // 1 owner (SHIPMENTS LEVEL)
  "payloads.owner.template=repeater_shipments",
  "payloads.owner.status!=unpublished",

  // 2 owners (FULFILLMENT_ORDERS LEVEL)
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.template=repeater_fulfillment_orders",
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.status!=unpublished",
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.location=bar",

  // 3 owners (ORDER LEVEL)
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.fulfillment_orders.owner.parent=/orders/",
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.fulfillment_orders.owner.template=order",
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.fulfillment_orders.owner.status!=unpublished",
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.fulfillment_orders.owner.test=0",
  "payloads.owner.shipments.owner.fulfillment_orders.owner.provider=foo",
];
// debugger says this translates to 2 sql queries

echo $pages->count(implode(",", $selector));

... then I get a different result! Notice that the correct one uses 5 sql queries vs. the incorrect one uses 2 sql queries.

I don't use owner selectors often, but they are powerful and more efficient, and it's very nice being able to crawl the relationships between pages/repeaters using multiple owner selectors (eg: a.owner.b.owner.c.owner) like I described (something that's undocumented but very powerful).

However as mentioned, it seems the order in which you define the pieces of the selector matters. Is this a bug? If not, is there documentation stating how the order of the pieces of a selector are supposed to influence the resulting sql queries?

Note: Using PW 3.0.247