Org-mode find tasks with no deadlines, transitively

Question

I'm using sparse trees (not in agenda view, but in "normal" tree view) to help me get a clear picture of what I have to do, at a glance.

I would like to create a sparse tree that shows all the tasks that have no deadlines, and whose parents also have no deadlines.

Is that possible with a search query? If not, how can I do it?

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

In case someone else is interested, I found out a way to do it.

The "trick" is to make DEADLINE an inherited property. While subtasks with only inherited deadlines will still not show up in the agenda (for those deadlines), search criteria involving deadlines will apply to them anyway.

To make DEADLINE an inherited property, use:

(setq org-use-property-inheritance (quote ("DEADLINE")))

Then find tasks without a deadline with:

C-c / m -DEADLINE={.}

Or the full command:

(org-match-sparse-tree nil "-DEADLINE={.}")

Sources:

• The following thread gave me the way to make DEADLINE inherited: http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/48932
• The org-mode manual explains how search for tasks with not scheduled date: http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/advanced-searching.html#sec-7