Inside a method or a shell session, self represents the current model, and we can only access that model's records. To access other models, we should use self.env. For example, self.env['res.partner'] returns a reference to the Partner model (which is also an empty recordset).
We can then use search() or browse() on it to retrieve recordsets, and the search() methods use a domain expression to define for the record selection criteria.
The search() method takes a domain expression and returns a recordset with the records matching those conditions. An empty domain [] will return all records.
Note
If the model has the active special field, by default only the records with active=True will be considered.
The following keyword arguments can also be used:
orderis a string to be used as theORDER BYclause in the database query. This is usually a comma-separated list of field names. Each field name may be followed by theDESCkeyword, to indicate...