= Scoped search {}[http://travis-ci.org/wvanbergen/scoped_search]

The scoped_search gem 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.

== Preview

A demo application using the scoped search can be found here: http://github.com/abenari/scoped_search_demo_app A running version of the demo application can be found here: http://scope-search-demo.heroku.com A Rails 3.2 demo with assets pipeline and twitter bootstrap: theme https://github.com/abenari/search-demo2

== Installing

Add the following line in your Gemfile, and run bundle install:

gem "scoped_search"

Scoped search 4.x supports Rails 4.2 to 5.0, with Ruby 2.0.0 or higher. Use previous versions, e.g. 3.x to support older versions of Rails or Ruby.

== Usage

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: http://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 scoped_search 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)

=== Search profiles

If you include a :profile option to the scoped_search call, 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

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

== Query language

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: http://github.com/wvanbergen/scoped_search/wiki/query-language

== Additional resources

• Project wiki: https://github.com/wvanbergen/scoped_search/wiki
• Issue tracker: https://github.com/wvanbergen/scoped_search/issues
• RDoc documentations: http://www.rubydoc.info/gems/scoped_search
• Source code: https://github.com/wvanbergen/scoped_search

• See CHANGELOG.rdoc for the changes to this library over time.
• See CONTRIBUTING.rdoc if you want to report bugs, or help out on this project.

== License

This plugin is released under the MIT license (see LICENSE).

This plugin was originally developed for Floorplanner.com by Willem van Bergen (https://github.com/wvanbergen) with help from Wes Hays (https://github.com/weshays). The current maintainer is Amos Benari (https://github.com/abenari).