The scoped_search Rails plugin makes it easy to search your ActiveRecord models. Searching is performed using a query string, which should be passed to the named_scope search_for. Based on a definition in what fields to look, it will build query conditions and return those as a named scope.

Scoped search is great if you want to offer a simple yet powerful search box to your users and build a query based on the search string they enter. It comes with a built-in search syntax auto-completer and a value auto-completer. It also comes with a set of helpers that makes it easy to create a clean web UI with sorting and an ajax auto-completer.

A demo application using the scoped search can be found here: github.com/abenari/scoped_search_demo_app A running version of the demo application can be found here: scope-search-demo.heroku.com

For a Rails 3 application add the following line in your Gemfile, and run bundle install:

gem "scoped_search"

For Rails 2 Add the following code to your Rails configuration in config/environment.rb, and run rake gems:install to install the gem.:

Rails::Initializer.run do |config|
  ...
  config.gem 'scoped_search'
end

Scoped search requires you to define the fields you want to search in:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  scoped_search :on => [:first_name, :last_name]
end

For more information about options and using fields from relations, see the project wiki on search definitions: github.com/wvanbergen/scoped_search/wiki/search-definition

Now, the search_for scope is available for queries. You should pass a query string to the scope. This can be empty or nil, in which case all no search conditions are set (and all records will be returned).

User.search_for('my search string').each { |user| ... }

The result is returned as named_scope. Because of this, you can actually chain the call with other scopes, or with will_paginate. An example:

class Project < ActiveRecord::Base
  searchable_on :name, :description
  named_scope :public, :conditions => {:public => true }
end

# using chained named_scopes and will_paginate in your controller
Project.public.search_for(params[:q]).paginate(:page => params[:page], :include => :tasks)

If you include a :profile option to the scoped_searchcall, the fields specified will only be searched when you include this :profile into the search_for command as well:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  scoped_search :on => :public_information
  scoped_search :on => :private_information, :profile => :members
end

This will only search the :public_information column:

User.search_for('blah blah blah')

And this will only search the :private_information column:

User.search_for('blah blah blah', :profile => :members)

More information about usage can be found in the project wiki: github.com/wvanbergen/scoped_search/wiki/usage

The search query language is simple, but supports several constructs to support more complex queries:

words

require every word to be present, e.g.: some search keywords

phrases

use quotes for multi-word phrases, e.g. "police car"

negation

look for “everything but”, e.g. police -uniform, -"police car", police NOT car

logical keywords

make logical constructs using AND, OR, &&, ||, &, | operators, e.g. uniform OR car, scoped && search

parentheses

to structure logic e.g. "police AND (uniform OR car)"

comparison operators

to search in numerical or temporal fields, e.g. > 22, < 2009-01-01

explicit fields

search only in the given field. e.g. username = root, created_at > 2009-01-01

NULL checks

using the set? and null? operator with a field name, e.g. null? graduated_at, set? parent_id

A complex query example to look for Ruby on Rails programmers without cobol experience, over 18 years old, with a recently updated record and a non-lame nickname:

("Ruby" OR "Rails") -cobol, age >= 18, updated_at > 2009-01-01 && nickname !~ l33t

For more info, see the the project wiki: github.com/wvanbergen/scoped_search/wiki/query-language

• Source code: github.com/wvanbergen/scoped_search/tree

• Project wiki: github.com/wvanbergen/scoped_search/wiki

• Issue tracker: github.com/wvanbergen/scoped_search/issues

• RDoc documentation: rdoc.info/projects/wvanbergen/scoped_search

• wvanbergen’s blog posts: techblog.floorplanner.com/tag/scoped_search

• abenari’s blog: scopedsearch.wordpress.com/

This plugin is released under the MIT license. Please contact weshays (github.com/weshays) or wvanbergen (github.com/wvanbergen) for any questions.