acts_as_indexed

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Instructions

This plugin allows boolean-queried fulltext search to be added to any Rails app with no dependencies and minimal setup.

Resources

Install

  ./script/plugin install http://svn.douglasfshearer.com/rails/plugins/acts_as_indexed

Usage

Setup

Add acts_as_indexed to the top of any models you want to index, along with a list of the fields you wish to be indexed.

        class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
          acts_as_indexed :fields => [:title, :body]

          ...
        end

The fields are not limited to model fields, but can be any instance method of the current model.

        class User < ActiveRecord::Base
          acts_as_indexed :fields => [:address, :fullname]

                def fullname
                        return self.firstname + ' ' + self.lastname
                end

          ...
        end

Acts_as_indexed automatically filters out query words shorter than 3 characters, for performance sake. This value can be changed by passing min_word_size along with the fields. NOTE: The index files must be rebuilt by deleting the ‘index’ directory in your app‘s root directory.

        class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
          acts_as_indexed :fields => [:title, :body], :min_word_size => 5

          ...
        end

Searching

To search, call the find_with_index method on your model, passing a query as the first argument. The optional ids_only parameter, when set to true, will return only the IDs of any matching records.

        # Returns array of Post objects.
        my_search_results = Post.find_with_index('my search query') # =>  [#<Post:0x314b09c @attributes={"...

        # Pass any of the ActiveRecord find options to the search.
        my_search_results = Post.find_with_index('my search query',{:limit => 10}) # return the first 10 matches.

        # Returns array of IDs.
        my_search_results = Post.find_with_index('my search query',{},{:ids_only => true}) # =>  [12,19,33...

Query Options

The following query operators are supported:

AND:	This is the default option. ‘cat dog’ will find records matching ‘cat’ AND ‘dog’.
NOT:	‘cat -dog’ will find records matching ‘cat’ AND NOT ‘dog‘
INCLUDE:	‘cat +me’ will find records matching ‘cat’ and ‘me’, even if ‘me’ is smaller than the `min_word_size`
"":	Quoted terms are matched as phrases. ’"cat dog"’ will find records matching the whole phrase. Quoted terms can be preceded by the NOT operator; ‘cat -"big dog"’ etc. Quoted terms can include words shorter than the `min_word_size`.

RDoc Documentation

To generate the RDoc documentation, run the rake rdoc task in the acts_as_indexed plugin folder. Then point your browser at /vendor/plugins/acts_as_indexed/rdoc/index.html.

Alternatively, you can view the rdoc documentation online.

Problems, Comments, Suggestions?

All of the above are most welcome. dougal.s@gmail.com

Credits

Douglas F Shearer - douglasfshearer.com

Future Releases

Future releases will be looking to add the following features:

Optional html scrubbing during indexing.
Ranked results based on query term occurences.
Ranking affected by field weightings.

README