Rails query by multiple keywords

Question

I am trying to create a custom search method for a project I'm working on. Ideally I'd like to be able to have the user input and unlimited number of keywords to filter the results by, but I'm willing to settle for a just a couple. I have my code working for just one keyword. Here is the code in my model:

class Food < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :meal_items, inverse_of: :food_for_meal, foreign_key: 'food_for_meal_id'
  has_many :user_meals, through: :meal_items

  def self.search (key)
    Food.where("description LIKE ?", "%#{key}%")
  end
end

Here is one attempt I have made to use multiple keywords:

class Food < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :meal_items, inverse_of: :food_for_meal, foreign_key: 'food_for_meal_id'
  has_many :user_meals, through: :meal_items

  def self.search (key)
    keys = key.split('+')
    Food.where("description LIKE ?", "%#{keys[0]}%") 
          AND ("description LIKE ?", "%#{keys[1]}%")
  end
end

I have tried moving things in and out of parens and quotes and so forth, but can't seem to nail down the correct syntax. Any help would be appreciated.

Looks like you may want to explore full text search. Are you using PG or MySQL? — vich
– vich, Commented Jun 14, 2016 at 20:43

Leonel Galán · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-14 20:44:27Z

2

.where takes SQL fragments, so just put the AND inside.

Food.where("description LIKE ? OR description LIKE ?", "%#{keys[0]}%", "%#{keys[1]}%")

You could do something like for n, keys:

Food.where((['description LIKE ?'] * keys.size).join(' OR '), *keys.map{ |key| "%#{key}%" })

EDIT: You probably want OR as pointed out by a commenter in my answer.

edited Jun 14, 2016 at 20:44

answered Jun 14, 2016 at 20:40

Leonel Galán

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4 Comments

vich Over a year ago

I think you want OR not AND

Leonel Galán Over a year ago

You are right, I got caught on the original question.

Atache Over a year ago

@Leito what does the asterisk here indicate? *keys.map{ |key| "%#{key}%" }

Leonel Galán Mar 17 at 14:13

@Atache, less than 10 years later still counts? For other readers, it's Ruby's splat operator. it destructures an array, so instead of the array being passed as the second argument to the where, the elements of the array are passed as second, third, fourth, etc. For example: abc=[a, b, c]; Foo.bar(*abc) # == Foo.bar(a,b,c)

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