Search Architect

Dead simple, powerful and fully customizable searching for your Rails or ActiveRecord models and associations. Capable of searching any attribute type using SQL type casting.

Why This Library:

If you are considering using the ransack gem, then you should think again because ransack is a very dirty solution that completely integrates the Searching, Sorting, and Views as requirements of eachother. Not having these features separated hurts your ability to customize and modify your code. Don't fall into this trap. This gem is just one concern with one scope. If you want to customize it later you can simply copy the code directly into your project.

Installation

gem 'search_architect'

Then add include SearchArchitect to your ApplicationRecord or models.

Defining Search Scopes

You can define any search scopes on your model using the following:

class Comment < ApplicationRecord
  include SearchArchitect
  
  has_many :comments
end

class Comment < ApplicationRecord
  include SearchArchitect
  
  belongs_to :user
  belongs_to :post
end

class Post < ApplicationRecord
  include SearchArchitect
  
  has_many :comments

  search_scope :search, attributes: [
    :title,
    :content,
    :number, ### non-string fields are automatically converted to a searchable type using sql CAST method
    "CAST((#{self.table_name}.number+100) AS CHAR)", ### Plain SQL fully supported
    :created_at, ### automatically converts date/time fields to searchable string type using sql CAST method, uses default db output format by default

    comments: [
      :number,
      :content,

      user: [
        "users.name",

        comments: [
          {table_alias: "users_comments"}, ### Must manually specify a table_alias when we have multiple associations referencing the same table
          "users_comments.content", 
        ],
      ]
    ],
  ]
  
  search_scope :search_with_locale, sql_variables: [:locale], attributes: [
    "#{self.table_name}.name_translations ->> :locale", # specify any variables as symbols, Ex. :locale
  ]
  
  search_scope :search_custom_date_format, attributes: [
    # PostgreSQL, Oracle
    "TO_CHAR(#{self.table_name}.approved_at, 'YYYY-mm-dd')",
    
    # MySQL
    "DATE_FORMAT(#{self.table_name}.approved_at, '%Y-%m-%d')",
    
    # SQLite
    "strftime(#{self.table_name}.approved_at, '%Y-%m-%d')",
  ]

end

You would now have access to the following searching methods:

posts = Post.search(params[:search])

posts = Post.search_with_locale(params[:search], sql_variables: {locale: @current_locale})

Search Types

We includes two different searching types:

Full String Search

Considers entire string as one search. In my experience this is the natural choice however the multi-search proves to be very powerful.

posts = Post.search(params[:search], search_type: :full_search)
### OR
posts = Post.search(params[:search]) # defaults to :full_search

Multi Word Full-text Search

Recommended. Split words on whitespace characters, Quoting is allowed to combine words

The following type of queries are supported:

• foo (rows must include foo)
• foo bar (rows must include both foo and bar)
• "foo bar" (rows must include the phrase "foo bar")

posts = Post.search(params[:search], search_type: :multi_search)

Comparison Operators

Different comparison operators can be specified by adding the :comparison_operator argument

posts = Post.search(params[:search], comparison_operator: '=')

The default is ILIKE if Postgresql or LIKE if non-postgres. Current valid options are: ILIKE, LIKE, and =

SQL Type Casting Cheatsheet

• Most Types:
  • CAST(posts.number AS CHAR)
  • CAST(posts.created_at AS CHAR) - uses default db output format by default
• Custom Date/Time Formatting:
  • Postgresql, Oracle
    • TO_CHAR(posts.created_at, 'YYYY-mm-dd')
  • MySQL
    • DATE_FORMAT(posts.created_at, '%Y-%m-%d')
  • SQLite strftime(posts.created_at, '%Y-%m-%d')

Limitation: Boolean columns

Boolean columns are only searched by their true/false value. Searching boolean fields by the column name is not possible because apparently SQL has the restriction where you cannot use CASE statements within WHERE clauses.

For example if you were trying to search a boolean by the string of its column name:

CASE WHEN users.admin IS TRUE THEN 'admin' ELSE '' END

You will find it extremely difficult to work around this. Instead I strongly recommend handling your booleans filtering logic seperately from your search logic.

Search Form / Views

We do not provide built in view templates because this is a major restriction to applications. If your looking for starter template feel free to use the following example:

• examples/_search_form.html.slim

Key Models Provided & Additional Customizations

A key aspect of this library is its simplicity and small API. For major functionality customizations we encourage you to first delete this gem and then copy this gems code directly into your repository.

I strongly encourage you to read the code for this library to understand how it works within your project so that you are capable of customizing the functionality later.

• lib/search_architect/concerns/search_scope_concern.rb

Credits

Created & Maintained by Weston Ganger - @westonganger