ActsAsMostPopular

Make your models feel like they are in high school again. This plugin retrieves the most frequently occurring values for each column. It adds methods of the form most_popular_pluralized_column_name. You can control how many results you get with the :limit option. The default limit is 5.

Usage

Use the macro within your ActiveRecord model

  class Topic < ActiveRecord::Base
        acts_as_most_popular
  end

Then query any of your models using the new finder methods

  topics = Topic.most_popular_names

By default, the finder methods return an array containing the values for the column

  ["being a ninja", "skydiving", "programming", "kayaking", "being a pirate"]

Using Frequency

If you wish to retrieve the counts from the results as well, you can do so by appending the :frequency => true option to the finder.

  topics = Topic.most_popular_names(:frequency => true)

Instead of a flat array, the finder will return a collection of results

  topics.first.name
  "being a ninja"
  topics.first.frequency
  "255"

Least Popular

Sometimes it helps to find the least popular records. Adding this to your model is just as easy.

Use the macro within your ActiveRecord model

  class Topic < ActiveRecord::Base
        acts_as_least_popular
  end

Then query any of your models using the new finder methods

  users = User.least_popular_first_names
  users = User.least_popular_first_names(:frequency => true)

Notes

The most_popular_* methods take plural column names. Take a look at the tests for more examples.

Testing

Create a database named most_popular_test or change the database name in database.yml in the plugin folder. Navigate to the plugin folder and run rake.

At the current time, tests only run correctly if the plugin resides within a Rails application.

Changes

March 18th, 2009

 * (Brian Hogan) - under large databsets, the plugin performs horribly. Replaced Ruby logic with database logic and improved performance dramatically.
 * (Brian Hogan) - Added Chris Johnson's least_popular routines
 * (Brian Hogan) - Fixed tests to run properly from within a Rails app
 * (Brian Hogan) - Removed unnecessary loading of empty modules
 * (Brian Hogan) - new tests to support frequency feature

Credits

Improved performance and support for ‘least popular’ finders by Brian Hogan and Chris Johnson Original work copyright © 2006 Shane Vitarana. Distributed under the MIT License.