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rubyonrails-talk
1

Hi, I'm new here and started working with rails only a month ago.

I'm trying to develop a VideoGame Database that is supposed to contain many many entries.

Here's my problem. Currently any new gameentry is listed in my index-page like this

[code]

<% @games.each do |game| %>   <tr>     <td><%= game.title_german %></td>     <td><%= game.title_original %></td>     <td><%= game.release %></td>     <td><%= game.dlc %></td>     <td><%= link_to 'Show', game %></td>     <!-- <td><%= link_to 'Edit', edit_game_path(game) %></td> -->     <td><%= link_to 'Destroy', game, confirm: 'Are you sure?', method: :delete %></td>   </tr> <% end %> [/code]

of course that doesn't make a lot of sense. No Shop or library (like imdb) would have an accessible page listing the intire datatable. So I want the index page only to display those games that were filtered by the searchfield, which looks like this.

[code]

  <%= form_tag games_path, :method => 'get' do %>     <p>       <%= text_field_tag :search, params[:search] %>       <%= submit_tag "Search", :title_german => nil %>     </p>   <% end %> [/code]

My Model and my controller are defined as follows:

[code] class Game < ActiveRecord::Base

  def self.search(search)     if search       find(:all, :conditions => ['title_german LIKE ?', "%#{search}%"])     else       find(:all)     end   end end

class GamesController < ApplicationController

  def index     @games = Game.search(params[:search])   end end [/code]

I was thinking about defining a helper method called "used_search?" in the application_controller to used this method in an if-statement which determines wether to display the index.html.erb or not...would that be the usual way to solve this problem or what do experienced developers do? I have no clue!

I would appreciate any kind of help! thanks

2

Hi, I'm new here and started working with rails only a month ago.

I'm trying to develop a VideoGame Database that is supposed to contain many many entries.

Here's my problem. Currently any new gameentry is listed in my index-page like this

[code]

<% @games.each do |game| %> <tr>    <td><%= game.title_german %></td>    <td><%= game.title_original %></td>    <td><%= game.release %></td>    <td><%= game.dlc %></td>    <td><%= link_to 'Show', game %></td>    <!-- <td><%= link_to 'Edit', edit_game_path(game) %></td> -->    <td><%= link_to 'Destroy', game, confirm: 'Are you sure?', method: :delete %></td> </tr> <% end %> [/code]

of course that doesn't make a lot of sense. No Shop or library (like imdb) would have an accessible page listing the intire datatable. So I want the index page only to display those games that were filtered by the searchfield, which looks like this.

[code]

<%= form_tag games_path, :method => 'get' do %>    <p>      <%= text_field_tag :search, params[:search] %>      <%= submit_tag "Search", :title_german => nil %>    </p> <% end %> [/code]

My Model and my controller are defined as follows:

[code] class Game < ActiveRecord::Base

def self.search(search)    if search      find(:all, :conditions => ['title_german LIKE ?', "%#{search}%"])    else      find(:all)    end end end

class GamesController < ApplicationController

def index    @games = Game.search(params[:search]) end end [/code]

I was thinking about defining a helper method called "used_search?" in the application_controller to used this method in an if-statement which determines wether to display the index.html.erb or not...would that be the usual way to solve this problem or what do experienced developers do? I have no clue!

I would appreciate any kind of help! thanks

I would look at Kaminari or another "paging" system, and page the results. Show the first 25 if no search is given (plus navigation to page through 25 more at a time). That's as easy as chaining one more modifier in your controller:

  ...your_selector.page(params[:page])

You can choose to page your search results along with your regular results -- that's another implementation detail you can use or not. Depends on how focused the results are, if they give you back hundreds of results, you might want to page them as well. Just be sure to use GET for your search form, and Kaminari will interweave the search querystring and the page querystring without any extra effort on your part.

Walter

3

Thanks for responding?

I watched a Kaminari Tutorial video on railscast and like what it does, I sure will use it too when I want my search results to be displayed in small pieces, but it is actually not what I was looking for.

I'm not trying to have my results seperated in pages, but I want the entire "product"-list NOT to be displayed at all. The Index page should ONLY display filtered titles, but so far as default (when opening the index page) EVERY product is listed.

I don't see Amazon oder IMDB having a page where every single product or Movie is listed...

4

Okay, then you should set that up in your index method. Decide what you do want to show (maybe a partial with "How to Search" instructions) and show that instead of ModelName.all.

def index   if(params[:q])     #do your search thing   else     render :partial => 'search/instructions'   end end

Walter

5

def self.search(params) self.where(params[‘search’]).page(params[:page]) end

6

I tried Walters suggestion and put my display-table in a partial; this is what the method looked like

def index   if(params[:q])      @games = Game.search(params[:search])   else     render :partial => 'search_results'   end end

But it would cause me a NoMethod Error... it says that the "each" function was not defined, but why?

Rolando Garros suggestion is simply not changing anything, maybe I'm not implementing it correctly...

7

I tried Walters suggestion and put my display-table in a partial; this is what the method looked like

def index if(params[:q])     @games = Game.search(params[:search]) else    render :partial => 'search_results' end end

But it would cause me a NoMethod Error... it says that the "each" function was not defined, but why?

I think you have it backwards. If there's no query, there's nothing to put in the partial, but the partial is needed in the case that you DO have a search query. Make a second partial that only has "No search yet" in it. Put that in the else side. In the if side, put this:

render :partial => 'search_results', :locals => @games

Inside your partial, change any instance of @games to games (remove the @).

There's an even easier way to do this, and that's by making a single row of your table as a partial, and saving it with the name _game.html.erb. Then in your index page, add this:

<table> <%= render @games %> </table>

If you haven't done so yet, I really recommend a thorough read of the Rails Guide on Views and Rendering. http://guides.rubyonrails.org

Walter

8

So this is what the method in the controller looks now

  def index     if(params[:q])       render :partial => 'search_results', :locals => @games     else       render :partial => 'no_search_yet'     end   end

and I removed the one "@" in the index view, but it only results in, whenever I use the search, the "_no_search_yet" partial is being displayed. So the index page always displays this partial, no matter I use the search button or not.

I think the problem is, the default link "http://localhost:3000/games&quot; always leads to my index.view (altough not defined in the routes.rb). Having used the search function end in another Url, but the default always keeps the full list :confused:

9

So this is what the method in the controller looks now

def index    if(params[:q])      render :partial => 'search_results', :locals => @games    else      render :partial => 'no_search_yet'    end end

and I removed the one "@" in the index view, but it only results in, whenever I use the search, the "_no_search_yet" partial is being displayed. So the index page always displays this partial, no matter I use the search button or not.

What do you see in the console while you test? Did you name your search field q? params[:q] won't be filled unless that's the case. I can't recall whether you did or not.

Walter

10

Have a look at the Rails Guide on Debugging. It will show you techniques that you can use to debug the code.

Colin

11

in my console it says:

" Started GET "/games?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search=mega&commit=Search" for 127.0.0.1 at 2013-01-30 15:52:18 +0100 Processing by GamesController#index as HTML   Parameters: {"utf8"=>"V", "search"=>"mega", "commit"=>"Search"}   Rendered games/_no_search_yet.html.erb (0.0ms) Completed 200 OK in 5ms (Views: 0.0ms | ActiveRecord: 0.0ms)"

what does the ":q" actually mean? I didn't name my search field, as far as I know, it looks like this

  <%= form_tag games_path, :method => 'get' do %>     <p>       <%= text_field_tag :search, params[:search] %>       <%= submit_tag "Search", :title_german => nil %>     </p>   <% end %>

12

in my console it says:

" Started GET "/games?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search=mega&commit=Search" for 127.0.0.1 at 2013-01-30 15:52:18 +0100 Processing by GamesController#index as HTML Parameters: {"utf8"=>"V", "search"=>"mega", "commit"=>"Search"} Rendered games/_no_search_yet.html.erb (0.0ms) Completed 200 OK in 5ms (Views: 0.0ms | ActiveRecord: 0.0ms)"

what does the ":q" actually mean? I didn't name my search field, as far as I know, it looks like this

Yes you did. All form fields that the server knows about have a name attribute, and the Rails helper creates one. (View source in a browser to see the generated code.)

<%= form_tag games_path, :method => 'get' do %>    <p>      <%= text_field_tag :search, params[:search] %>      <%= submit_tag "Search", :title_german => nil %>    </p> <% end %>

According to this, your field is named 'search', so you would change the parameter that the "if" depends on accordingly:

  if(params[:search])     ...

params[:q] would be set if the text_field_tag looked like this:

  text_field_tag :q, params[:q]

Walter

13

This is really weird. Having used ":q" as a name actually opens the "no search yet" partial, wether I used the search function or not.

but using ":search" in my if clause I get a "NameError" in my index file.

undefined local variable or method `games' for #<#<Class:0x674f2c8>:0x3f8e698>

Extracted source (around line #3):

1: <table> 2: 3: <% games.each do |game| %> 4: <tr> 5: <td><%= link_to game.title_german, game %></td> 6: <td><%= game.title_original %></td>

returning the "@" to "games" would cause a nomethod error for "each"...

Sorry to be bothering with this, but I'm really confused...

14

This is really weird. Having used ":q" as a name actually opens the "no search yet" partial, wether I used the search function or not.

but using ":search" in my if clause I get a "NameError" in my index file.

undefined local variable or method `games' for #<#<Class:0x674f2c8>:0x3f8e698>

I made an error in my render partial code, it should read

render :partial => 'games', :locals => {:games => @games}

The missing symbol is what's throwing this off. The fact that you see something in the view when you use the wrong search symbol only tells you that the if statement works.

Walter

15

First, thank you for helping me out with this problem for this long.

The Partial I'm using is "_search_results" not "_games", so I corrected this in my statement.

The if statement works indeed. Now the index page always shows my desired template, when the search function was NOT used. But if it's used there is still an error. using "games" as a partial of course throws me a "missing template" message, but actually using the partial I need still throws me:

NoMethodError in Games#index

Showing .../app/views/games/_games.html.erb where line #3 raised:

undefined method `each' for nil:NilClass

wether I use the "@" symbol or not in the search-field...

I feel bad not getting this straight. Even if I had come up with this solution by myself I couldn't handle this issue.

16

How are you getting on with the Rails Guide on Debugging?

Another suggestion - work right through a good tutorial such as railstutorial.org which will give you a good introduction to the basics of Rails. Then you should understand better what is going on.

Colin

17

All right I fixed it now!!

Appearently all I had to put in the if statement, was the same code-line I originally used for simply displaying the list:

  def index

     @games = Game.search(params[:search])

  end

I don't even have to do an if-statement in the controller at all. That goes to the html.erb, where either partial has to be displayed.

<% if(params[:search]) %>   <%= render 'search_results' %> <% else %>   <%= render 'no_search_yet' %> <% end %>

Otherwise, my "no_search_yet" partial would be displayed without inhertiting any css...

Thanks anyway for your help guys, you were great!!

A far more greater issue would be the rating system I'm trying to develop, but noone has replied in this thread so far :slight_smile: