Ruby on Rails simple search and scope filters

Question

I have set up a simple search from Ryan Bate's rails casts: http://railscasts.com/episodes/37-simple-search-form

After the search results show, I would like to have a few links that can sort the already searched information. For my Product model they search by name and get results. I would like to have category links under the search so they can then filter their search results by category. controller is straight forward:

def index
  @products = Product.search(params[:search])

#scope filtering
  if params[:toys]
    @products = Product.toys
  end
end

I have added scopes in the model, but am not sure how to combine the SQL statement for the scopes and the search.

class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
 scope :electronics, -> { where(category: 'electronics') }
 scope :toys, -> { where(category: 'toys') }

 def self.search(term)
   where("name like :term", term: "%#{term}%")
 end
end

And the view: index.html.erb

<%= form_tag products_path, :method => 'get' do %>
  <p>
    <%= text_field_tag :search, params[:search] %>
    <%= submit_tag "Search", :name => nil %>
  </p>

<% end %>
<%= link_to 'Electronics', products_path(:electonrics => true) %> | <%= link_to 'Toys', products_path(:toy => true) %>

Basically when I search the form goes to localhost:3000/products?utf8=✓&search=foo gets all the results for foo as it should. Then when I click filter only electronics after the search I need some sort of join or union to make the search localhost:3000/products?utf8=✓&search=foo&category=toys.

If there is an easier way to sort by category after the user has searched some field, I'm sure I and others learning ruby on rails would be thankful to see a more ruby way to solve the problem.

tirdadc tirdadc · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-25T21:17:09

You can do this in your controller:

def index
  @products = Product.all
  @products = Product.search(params[:search]) unless params[:search].blank?
  @products = @products.toys unless params[:toys].blank?
end

Right now you're resetting the list by doing @products = Product.toys.

Ruby on Rails simple search and scope filters

1 Answers