I have built a blog
application w/ ruby on rails and I am trying
to implement a search feature. The blog
application allows for users
to tag posts. The tags are created in their own table and belong_to :post. When a tag is created, so is a record in the tag table where the name of the tag is tag_name and associated by post_id. Tags are strings.
I am trying
to allow a user
to search for any word tag_name in any order. Here is what I mean. Lets say a particular post has a tag that is 'ruby code controller'. In my current search feature, that tag will be found if the user searches for 'ruby', 'ruby code', or 'ruby code controller'. It will not be found if the user types in 'ruby controller'.
Essentially what I am saying is that I would like each word entered in the search
to be searched for, not necessarily the 'string' that is entered into the search.
I have been experimenting with providing multiple textfields
to allow the user
to type in multiple words, and also have been playing around with the code below, but can't seem
to accomplish the above. I am new
to ruby and rails so sorry if this is an obvious question and prior
to installing a gem or plugin I thought I would check
to see if there was a simple fix. Here is my code:
View: /views/tags/index.html.erb
<% form_tag tags_path, :method => 'get' do %>
<p>
<%= text_field_tag :search, params[:search], :class => "textfield-search" %>
<%= submit_tag "Search", :name => nil, :class => "search-button" %>
</p>
<% end %>
TagsController
def index
@tags = Tag.search(params[:search]).paginate :page => params[:page], :per_page => 5
@tagsearch = Tag.search(params[:search])
@tag_counts = Tag.count(:group => :tag_name,
:order => 'count_all DESC', :limit => 100)
respond_to do |format|
format.html # index.html.erb
format.xml { render :xml => @tags }
end
end
Tag Model
class Tag < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :post
validates_length_of :tag_name, :maximum=>42
validates_presence_of :tag_name
def self.search(search)
if search
find(:all, :order => "created_at DESC", :conditions => ['tag_name LIKE ?', "%#{search}%"])
else
find(:all, :order => "created_at DESC")
end
end
end
