ActiveRecord::Search

a lightweight search-engine using ActiveRecord

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'activerecord-search'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install activerecord-search

This plugin permits, with few lines of code, to have a lightweight and steady ActiveRecord search-engine.

Below is an example of the features offered by this plugin:

Use case:

A model named Post that contains 2 fields: title:string and content:text.

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
    search_field :content
    search_option :anywhere
end

class PostsController < ApplicationController

    def index
        Post.search_post("Ruby") # It uses the :search_field and :search_option values
        Post.search_post("Ruby", :start_with) # It's possible to override the :search_option value
        Post.search_post("Ruby", :start_with, [:name, :content]) # It's possible to override the :search_option and :search_field values
        
        # Some helper method are available
        Post.start_with("Ruby")      # all records that start with 'Ruby'
        Post.end_with("Ruby")        # all records that end with 'Ruby'
        Post.search_anywhere("Ruby") # all records that search anywhere with 'Ruby'
       
    end
    
    ...
end

search_option method specifies where to search in the sentence.
Available options:

• :start_with : the sentence starts with the pattern.
• :end_with : the sentence ends with the pattern.
• :anywhere : search anywhere in the sentence. [DEFAULT OPTION]

search_field method specifies which field is used for the search. It's possible to search in multiple fields by using the method search_fields([]):

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
    search_fields [:title, :content] # search on :title OR :content 
end

A method :search_MODEL is auto-generated. some examples:

• for a model Post a method search_post is generated.
• for a model Book a method search_book is generated.

The method can accept more arguments. Example:

class PostsController < ApplicationController

    def index
        Post.search_post("Ruby", :start_with) # See search_option method section for more information
        Post.search_post("Ruby", :start_with, [:name, :content]) # it's possible to override the search_field option
    end
    
    ...
end

Append the model name to this method results from the following question: What is the probability that a search method already exists in the model?

After checking out the repo, run rake test to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/mehdi-farsi/activerecord-search.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Please, feel free to star the project if you like it ! :)