A drop=in replacement ActiveRecord finder for auto-complete that returns phonetically similar results, such as ‘Jeffery’, ‘Jefry’, and ‘Geoffry’. Use with any autocompleter or search form when phonetic matches or misspellings should be included.
Uses ActiveRecord with_scope, and all ActiveRecord find options should work.
Compatible with paginating_find, and hopefully most other well-behaved finder plugins. If you find issues, please report them.
SoundexFind implements a modified Soundex algorithm suitable for auto-complete or search functions. The default options optimize for misspelling or ambiguous spelling in a wide variety of situations.
The options will also support a true Soundex, as well as many other configurations.
The original soundex algorithm encodes text as the first letter, followed by digits (1-6), to a maximum of 3 digits, for a total of 4 characters in the encoded sequence.
To learn more about soundex: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundex
soundex_find(find_params, :soundex => search_string)
item_list = Item.soundex_find :all, :conditions => {:city => "Seattle"}, :include => [:images], :soundex => "jefry"
script/plugin install git://github.com/waltjones/soundex_find.git
Each column enabled for soundex search needs a companion column with _soundex suffix.
add_column :items, :column_name_soundex, :string, :default => "", :limit => 20, :null => false
Add soundex_columns to your model.
soundex_columns([:column_name], options)
:start => (true/false) default = false
If true, match start at beginning of string.
:end => (true/false) default = false
If true, match continues until end of string.
If :start and :end are both true, forces match of entire string.
:limit => (integer) default = nil
Limits the total number of soundex digits used in the match.
:strict => (true/false) default = false
Requires first character to be an exact match, regardless of soundex match.
A rake task is a good idea since you will want to bulk update your soundex columns if you change :limit or :strict init options later.
Item.find(:all).each { |p| p.update_attribute :column_name_soundex, Item.soundex(p.column_name) }
Default options attempt to match the compare string at any position in the reference string, for the total length of the compare string.
soundex_columns( :column_1 ) # example encoding Item.soundex("supernatural") => 2165364 # example find items => ["sue", "soup", "super", "supernatural"] Item.soundex_find("zoop") => ["soup", "super", "supernatural"] Item.soundex_find("pare") => ["super", "supernatural"]
True Soundex requires exact first letter, and matches from the beginning to the end of the string or three soundex digits past the ifrst letter, whichever comes first.
soundex_columns( :column_1, {:start => true, :end => true, :limit => 3, :strict => true} ) # example encoding Item.soundex("supernatural") => S165 # example find items => ["sue", "soup", "super", "supernatural"] Item.soundex_find("zoop") => [] Item.soundex_find("soopr") => ["super"]
Useful options for auto-complete are exact first letter, and any length of completion for the remainder of the string.
soundex_columns( :column_1, {:start => true, :strict => true} ) # example encoding Item.soundex("supernatural") => S165364 # example find items => ["sue", "soup", "super", "supernatural"] Item.soundex_find("zoop") => [] Item.soundex_find("soap") => ["soup", "super", "supernatural"]
#TODO: support multiple columns, currently only one column per model supported #TODO: Alternate language and charsets. Currently optimized for English.
SoundexFind was created by Walt Gordon Jones
Copyright © 2009 Walt Gordon Jones, released under the MIT license.