PgSearch builds named scopes that take advantage of PostgreSQL’s full text search
gem install pg_search
In Gemfile
gem 'pg_search'
In environment.rb
config.gem 'pg_search'
In Rakefile
require 'rubygems' require 'pg_search/tasks'
To add PgSearch to an ActiveRecord model, simply include the PgSearch module.
class Shape < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch end
You can use pg_search_scope to build a search scope. The first parameter is a scope name, and the second parameter is an options hash. The only required option is :against, which tells pg_search_scope which column or columns to search against.
To search against a column, pass a symbol as the :against option.
class BlogPost < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :search_by_title, :against => :title end
We now have an ActiveRecord scope named search_by_title on our BlogPost model. It takes one parameter, a search query string.
BlogPost.create!(:title => "Recent Developments in the World of Pastrami") BlogPost.create!(:title => "Prosciutto and You: A Retrospective") BlogPost.search_by_title("pastrami") # => [#<BlogPost id: 2, title: "Recent Developments in the World of Pastrami">]
Just pass an Array if you’d like to search more than one column.
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :search_by_full_name, :against => [:first_name, :last_name] end
Now our search query can match either or both of the columns.
person_1 = Person.create!(:first_name => "Grant", :last_name => "Hill") person_2 = Person.create!(:first_name => "Hugh", :last_name => "Grant") Person.search_by_full_name("Grant") # => [person_1, person_2] Person.search_by_full_name("Grant Hill") # => [person_1]
Just like with Active Record named scopes, you can pass in a Proc object that returns a hash of options. For instance, the following scope takes a parameter that dynamically chooses which column to search against.
Important: The returned hash must include a :query key. Its value does not necessary have to be dynamic. You could choose to hard-code it to a specific value if you wanted.
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :search_by_name, lambda do |name_part, query| raise ArgumentError unless [:first, :last].include?(name_part) { :against => name_part, :query => query } end end person_1 = Person.create!(:first_name => "Grant", :last_name => "Hill") person_2 = Person.create!(:first_name => "Hugh", :last_name => "Grant") Person.search_by_name :first, "Grant" # => [person_1] Person.search_by_name :last, "Grant" # => [person_2]
You can pass a Hash into the :associated_against option to search columns on other models. The keys are the names of the associations and the value works just like an :against option for the other model.
class Cracker < ActiveRecord::Base end class Cheese < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :cheeses end class Salami < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch belongs_to :cracker has_many :cheeses, :through => :cracker pg_search_scope :tasty_search, :associated_against => { :cheeses => [:kind, :brand], :cracker => :kind } end salami_1 = Salami.create! salami_2 = Salami.create! salami_3 = Salami.create! limburger = Cheese.create!(:kind => "Limburger") brie = Cheese.create!(:kind => "Brie") pepper_jack = Cheese.create!(:kind => "Pepper Jack") Cracker.create!(:kind => "Black Pepper", :cheeses => [brie], :salami => salami_1) Cracker.create!(:kind => "Ritz", :cheeses => [limburger, pepper_jack], :salami => salami_2) Cracker.create!(:kind => "Graham", :cheeses => [limburger], :salami => salami_3) Salami.tasty_search("pepper") # => [salami_1, salami_2]
By default, pg_search_scope uses the built-in PostgreSQL text search. If you pass the :features option to pg_search_scope, you can choose alternative search techniques.
class Beer < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :against => :name, :features => [:tsearch, :trigram, :dmetaphone] end
The currently implemented features are
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:tsearch - Full text search (built-in with 8.3 and later, available as a contrib package for some earlier versions)
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:trigram - Trigram search, which requires the trigram contrib package
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:dmetaphone - Double Metaphone search, which requires the fuzzystrmatch contrib package
PostgreSQL’s built-in full text search supports weighting, prefix searches, and stemming in multiple languages.
Each searchable column can be given a weight of “A”, “B”, “C”, or “D”. Columns with earlier letters are weighted higher than those with later letters. So, in the following example, the title is the most important, followed by the subtitle, and finally the content.
class NewsArticle < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :against => { :title => 'A', :subtitle => 'B', :content => 'C' } end
You can also pass the weights in as an array of arrays, or any other structure that responds to #each and yields either a single symbol or a symbol and a weight. If you omit the weight, a default will be used.
class NewsArticle < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :against => [ [:title, 'A'], [:subtitle, 'B'], [:content, 'C'] ] end class NewsArticle < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :against => [ [:title, 'A'], {:subtitle => 'B'}, :content ] end
PostgreSQL’s full text search matches on whole words by default. If you want to search for partial words, however, you can set :prefix to true. Since this is a :tsearch-specific option, you should pass it to :tsearch directly, as shown in the following example.
class Superhero < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :whose_name_starts_with, :against => :name, :using => { :tsearch => {:prefix => true} } end batman = Superhero.create :name => 'Batman' batgirl = Superhero.create :name => 'Batgirl' robin = Superhero.create :name => 'Robin' Superhero.whose_name_starts_with("Bat") # => [batman, batgirl]
PostgreSQL full text search also support multiple dictionaries for stemming. The default dictionary depends on your PostgreSQL setup. You can learn more about how dictionaries work by reading the PostgreSQL documention. If you use one of the language dictionaries, such as “english”, then variants of words (e.g. “jumping” and “jumped”) will match each other. If you don’t want stemming, you should pick the “simple” dictionary which does not do any stemming.
class BoringTweet < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :kinda_matching, :against => :text, :using => { :tsearch => {:dictionary => "english"} } pg_search_scope :literally_matching, :against => :text, :using => { :tsearch => {:dictionary => "simple"} } end sleepy = BoringTweet.create! :text => "I snoozed my alarm for fourteen hours today. I bet I can beat that tomorrow! #sleepy" sleeping = BoringTweet.create! :text => "You know what I like? Sleeping. That's what. #enjoyment" sleeper = BoringTweet.create! :text => "Have you seen Woody Allen's movie entitled Sleeper? Me neither. #boycott" BoringTweet.kinda_matching("sleeping") # => [sleepy, sleeping, sleeper] BoringTweet.literally_matching("sleeping") # => [sleeping]
Double Metaphone is an algorithm for matching words that sound alike even if they are spelled very differently. For example, “Geoff” and “Jeff” sound identical and thus match. Currently, this is not a true double-metaphone, as only the first metaphone is used for searching.
Double Metaphone support is currently available as part of the fuzzystrmatch contrib package that must be installed before this feature can be used. In addition to the contrib package, you must install a utility function into your database. To generate a migration for this, add the following line to your Rakefile:
include "pg_search/tasks"
and then run:
$ rake pg_search:migration:dmetaphone
The following example shows how to use :dmetaphone.
class Word < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :that_sounds_like, :against => :spelling, :using => :dmetaphone end four = Word.create! :spelling => 'four' far = Word.create! :spelling => 'far' fur = Word.create! :spelling => 'fur' five = Word.create! :spelling => 'five' Word.that_sounds_like("fir") # => [four, far, fur]
Trigram search works by counting how many three-letter substrings (or “trigrams”) match between the query and the text. For example, the string “Lorem ipsum” can be split into the following trigrams:
[" Lo", "Lor", "ore", "rem", "em ", "m i", " ip", "ips", "psu", "sum", "um ", "m "]
Trigram search has some ability to work even with typos and misspellings in the query or text.
Trigram support is currently available as part of the pg_trgm contrib package that must be installed before this feature can be used.
class Website < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :kinda_spelled_like, :against => :name, :using => :trigram end yahooo = Website.create! :name => "Yahooo!" yohoo = Website.create! :name => "Yohoo!" gogle = Website.create! :name => "Gogle" facebook = Website.create! :name => "Facebook" Website.kinda_spelled_like("Yahoo!") # => [yahooo, yohoo]
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ActiveRecord 2 or 3
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Postgresql
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Postgresql contrib modules for certain features
MIT