RubySimpleSearch

The simplest way to search the data in ActiveRecord models.

It offers simple but useful features:

Search on the default attributes
Override default search attributes to specific attributes (Credit goes to @abdullahtariq1171)
Search using patterns
Ruby block support to extend the search query
Simple search returns an ActiveRecord::Relation object

Mostly on the admin side, we do have a standard text field to search the data on the table. Sometimes we want to search through the attributes like title, content and ratings on the post model or email, username and description on the user model. For those searches, we use MySQL's or PostgreSQL's LIKE operator to get the results. While doing the same thing again and again on the different models, you add lots of duplication in your code.

Do not repeat yourself, use RubySimpleSearch.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'ruby_simple_search'

And then execute:

$ bundle install

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install ruby_simple_search

Usage

Define attributes that you want to search on it

class Post < ActiveActiveRecord::Base
  include RubySimpleSearch

  simple_search_attributes :title, :description
end

class User < ActiveActiveRecord::Base
  include RubySimpleSearch

  simple_search_attributes :email, :username, :address, :age
end

Features

Search on the default attributes

If you don't provide any attribute at the time of searching, it will use simple_search_attributes from the model.

class User < ActiveActiveRecord::Base
  include RubySimpleSearch

  simple_search_attributes :email, :username, :address
end


Post.simple_search('york')
# It will search in :email, :username and :address only

Override default search attributes to specific attributes

If you want to perform a specific search on particular attributes, you can pass specific attributes with attributes option.

class User < ActiveActiveRecord::Base
  include RubySimpleSearch

  simple_search_attributes :email, :username, :address
end

Post.simple_search('york')
# It will search in :email, :username and :address only

Post.simple_search('york', attributes: :address)
# It will search in :address only

User.simple_search('york', pattern: :ending, attributes: [:email, :address])
# It will search in :email and :address only with 'ending' pattern

Search using patterns

You can pass a LIKE pattern to the simple_search method.

Patterns:

beginning
ending
containing (Default pattern)
plain

Post.simple_search('york', pattern: :beginning)
# It will search like 'york%' and finds any values that start with "york"

Post.simple_search('york', pattern: :ending)
# It will search like '%york' and finds any values that end with "york"

Post.simple_search('york', pattern: :containing)
# It will search like '%york%' and finds any values that have "york" in any position

Post.simple_search('york', pattern: :plain)
# It will search like 'york' and finds any values that have "york" word

Ruby block support to extend the search query

User.simple_search('35') do |search_term|
  ["AND age = ?", search_term]
end

Block should return an array of search condition and values.

Simple search returns an `ActiveRecord::Relation` object

Model.simple_search('string') # => ActiveRecord::Relation object

Model.simple_search('string').to_sql

# OR

User.simple_search('mechanicles') do |search_term|
  ["AND address != ?", search_term]
end.to_sql

# => It will return an SQL query in string format

Contributing

Fork it
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
Create new Pull Request