So basically what I want is, if one of the booleans is true it will
search that particular index. So if by_user is true and by_title is
true, it will search the database of stories by user and title. If
only by_user is true, then it will only search by user.
So here's what I'm planning in the Search Model:
def stories
find_stories
end
def find_stories
find(:all, :conditions => ??)
end
I'm confused has to how to make the conditions since it will have to
check which booleans are true and then append onto the conditions. How
would I do this?
I have a Search Model which contains search data. It looks like this:
keywords:string
by_user:boolean
by_title:boolean
[...]
def find_stories
find(:all, :conditions => ??)
end
I'm confused has to how to make the conditions since it will have to
check which booleans are true and then append onto the conditions. How
would I do this?
Remember, :conditions can take a hash, which means you can do what you
want if you get your head out of ActiveRecord for a minute and into
Ruby hash-munging. So for example:
You can also use the :symbol interpolation support in conditions, to
get code that looks like this:
def self.find_stories # add parameters as needed
conditions = ['1 = 1'] # default; find complains if conditions is
empty
conditions << 'title LIKE :search' if by_title
conditions << 'user LIKE :search' if by_user
Story.find(:all, :conditions => [conditions.join(' AND '), {:search
=> "%#{keywords}%"}])
end
This simple example works for a single search term; extending it to
split keywords on spaces and combine terms with ' OR ' (or ' AND ',
depending on your interpretation of keywords) is fairly
straightforward.
If you're doing more complicated things in your searches, you might
also want to try using named scopes instead. Something like:
def self.find_stories
proxy = Story
proxy = proxy.search_by_title(keywords) if by_title
proxy = proxy.search_by_user(keywords) if by_user
proxy
end
...where the scopes are defined on Story thus:
class Story < AR::Base
named_scope :search_by_title, lambda { |keywords| kws =
keywords.split(/ /); { :conditions => [kws.map { |k| 'title
LIKE ?' }.join(' AND '), *(kws.map { |k| "%#{k}%" })] } }
end
and so on for user, where you can now add options like :joins and/
or :include if user is defined on another table.
So for example: