Easy newbie question: find conditions

Rails
1

Hello!

I am trying to run a simple find, and don’t know how to do it. I’m
essentially creating a glossary, and I want to be able to find all the
words that begin with each letter.

Seems like I ought to be able to do something like this:

Word.find(:all, :conditions => [‘spelling=?’, ‘a*’])

But that doesn’t work… How do a find all the records where the
spelling begins with ‘a’?

2

Excellent, thank you!

3

On Aug 11, 3:28 pm, Morgan K. [email protected]
wrote:

But that doesn’t work… How do a find all the records where the
spelling begins with ‘a’?

You’ll need a LIKE clause:

Work.find :all, :conditions => [‘spelling LIKE ?’, ‘a%’]

Note also that SQL uses % instead of *.

Jeff

REST with Rails, Oct 4, 2008 in Austin, TX:
http://www.purpleworkshops.com/workshops/rest-and-web-services

softiesonrails.com - blog
purpleworkshops.com - training
pragprog.com/titles/cerailn - Upcoming book, Rails for .NET Developers

4

As a further addendum, what if I wanted to find all words that begin
with ‘a’ and ‘b’ in one query?

If it helps, I’m using sqlite3.

5

On Mon, 2008-08-11 at 22:28 +0200, Morgan K. wrote:

But that doesn’t work… How do a find all the records where the
spelling begins with ‘a’?

probably depends upon your sql backend but something like this should
work…

Word.find(:all, :conditions => [“spelling LIKE ?”, “a%”])

Craig

6

On Aug 11, 3:59 pm, Morgan K. [email protected]
wrote:

As a further addendum, what if I wanted to find all words that begin
with ‘a’ and ‘b’ in one query?

If it helps, I’m using sqlite3.

Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Probably something like this:

Work.find :all, :conditions => [‘spelling LIKE ? OR spelling LIKE ?’,
‘a%’, ‘b%’]

My SQL-fu isn’t great so there might be a better way to do it.

Jeff

REST with Rails, Oct 4, 2008 in Austin, TX:
http://www.purpleworkshops.com/workshops/rest-and-web-services

softiesonrails.com - blog
purpleworkshops.com - training
pragprog.com/titles/cerailn - Upcoming book, Rails for .NET Developers

7

I, too, am using sqlite3 and this works for me:

Video.find(:all, :conditions=>[‘title LIKE ? OR title LIKE ?’, ‘a%’, ‘b%’])
=> [#<Video id: 3, title: “a”, added_by: nil, created_at: “2008-08-11
21:05:32”, updated_at: “2008-08-11 21:05:32”>, #<Video id: 4, title:
“b”, added_by: nil, created_at: “2008-08-11 21:05:38”, updated_at:
“2008-08-11 21:05:38”>]

Morgan K. wrote:

Probably something like this:

Work.find :all, :conditions => [‘spelling LIKE ? OR spelling LIKE ?’,
‘a%’, ‘b%’]

Nope, that doesn’t seem to do it…

8

Lake D. wrote:

I, too, am using sqlite3 and this works for me:

Video.find(:all, :conditions=>[‘title LIKE ? OR title LIKE ?’, ‘a%’, ‘b%’])
=> [#<Video id: 3, title: “a”, added_by: nil, created_at: “2008-08-11
21:05:32”, updated_at: “2008-08-11 21:05:32”>, #<Video id: 4, title:
“b”, added_by: nil, created_at: “2008-08-11 21:05:38”, updated_at:
“2008-08-11 21:05:38”>]

That does the trick, thank you!

9

Probably something like this:

Work.find :all, :conditions => [‘spelling LIKE ? OR spelling LIKE ?’,
‘a%’, ‘b%’]

Nope, that doesn’t seem to do it…