Need guidance for a simple search Rails application

Rails
1

Hi,

I am learning Ruby. In the meantime, I have to make a simple app for a
small company that I know how to make in PHP and MySQL.

I have not started learning Rails yet (first I want to finish the Ruby
book
I have started). But I was thinking if with a little guidance may be I
can
make this app in Rails. If I can do it, that will be great.

The requirement is like this:

  • I am given an Excel file that has 11 columns. Each row has
    information
    about one item. Each row is unique. Right now the company uses this
    excel
    file to search for required information, and they want me to make a
    web app
    for this.

  • This Excel data and future data will be inserted into the database
    in
    bulk, using CSV imports. I think there is no need to break the table,
    and
    our app can just have a single table to search from.

  • The search will be done using 2 columns from the table.

  • One person will have the privilege to edit searched records.

  • Only 4 people will be using the app for now. There will be no
    option
    to sign-up for a new account.

  • The home page will have the search form (two fields, user can fill
    both or one).

I will appreciate (a lot) any pointers, guidance and help with this.

I can make this in PHP, but I’d love to make it in Rails.

– arslan

2

I didn’t exactly get your question. Are you looking for a way to search
for
the records ? If the number of rows is huge and you need full text
search,
you may need to look at Solr or Sphinx or AWS CloudSearch for fast
queries.
If time is not a big concern, you may even be able to do away with
simple
ActiveRecord queries (do look at squeel gem too :
GitHub - activerecord-hackery/squeel: Active Record, improved. Live again :) ).

3

On Monday, July 15, 2013 12:30:45 AM UTC-4, Arslan F. wrote:

The requirement is like this:
and our app can just have a single table to search from.

  • The home page will have the search form (two fields, user can fill
    both or one).

I will appreciate (a lot) any pointers, guidance and help with this.

I can make this in PHP, but I’d love to make it in Rails.

– arslan

Assuming you have little Ruby experience and no Rails experience I think
your best plan would be to familiarize yourself with RubyOnRails
tutorials
at: Getting Started with Rails — Ruby on Rails Guides (a full tree
provided by the RoR development group covering major Rails components),
and: Chapter 1: From zero to deploy | Ruby on Rails Tutorial | Learn Enough to Be Dangerous (a very
good
book by Michael H. with the apt sub-title “Learn Web D. with
Rails”). Both are free online.

Your application looks like a good one for a first effort with two
models:
User and Item. Members of the User class can have roles associated with
them, i.e.: Manager, Employee, and Administrator. The Item class will
be a
direct map of the spreadsheet, members will have fields that mirror the
spreadsheet columns. The Item search can be nicely built into the item
controller’s index method and the item edit restriction can be enforced
by
keying off the user’s role in the controller methods and views.

I would suggest that, at least initially, you use a snapshot of the
company’s spreadsheet to populate a database that you will use for all
development, test, and functional acceptance. You can then segregate
out a
separate task to either provide functions to import and export the excel
based data. I would suggest that the final design might want to have
the
data held in a database with a publish capability with an excel format
(and/or pdf, and/or …) that has the published date/time as part of the
page header.

Be sure to learn how to test your app, validate your data, and have fun.

4

On 15 July 2013 18:58, Rick [email protected] wrote:

book I have started). But I was thinking if with a little guidance may be I
bulk, using CSV imports. I think there is no need to break the table, and
one).
at: Getting Started with Rails — Ruby on Rails Guides (a full tree provided
by the RoR development group covering major Rails components), and:
Chapter 1: From zero to deploy | Ruby on Rails Tutorial | Learn Enough to Be Dangerous (a very good book
by Michael H. with the apt sub-title “Learn Web D. with Rails”).
Both are free online.

+1 to those suggestions. To start developing an app before working
right through a good rails tutorial will just result in wasting a lot
of time. The railstutorial.org example will give you some useful
stuff such as user authentication that you can use in your app
directly.

Colin

5

On Jul 16, 2013, at 8:49 AM, Arslan F. wrote:

Yes, part of it is looking for a way to search for the records. And yes, number
of rows is huge. There are around 80,000 rows split in multiple Excel sheets.

I am thinking I may have to split this one database table into more tables that
can help with the search.

No, 80,000 rows is a tiny database. You should absolutely not need to
split the table–stick with a clean design that mirrors a sensible
understanding of the data, don’t mess it up by trying to accommodate
imaginary performance concerns.

–
Scott R.
[email protected]
http://www.elevated-dev.com/
(303) 722-0567 voice

6

No, 80,000 rows is a tiny database. You should absolutely not need to
split the table–stick with a clean design that mirrors a sensible
understanding of the data, don’t mess it up by trying to accommodate
imaginary performance concerns.

Ah. Got it.

I’ll leave the table alone then.

Thank you Scott!
– arslan

7

Hi guys,

Thank you Emil, Rick and Colin.

Emil:

I didn’t exactly get your question. Are you looking for a way to search
for the records ? If the number of rows is huge and you need full text
search, you may need to look at Solr or Sphinx or AWS CloudSearch for fast
queries. If time is not a big concern, you may even be able to do away with
simple ActiveRecord queries (do look at squeel gem too :
GitHub - activerecord-hackery/squeel: Active Record, improved. Live again :) ).

Yes, part of it is looking for a way to search for the records. And yes,
number of rows is huge. There are around 80,000 rows split in multiple
Excel sheets.

I am thinking I may have to split this one database table into more
tables
that can help with the search.

Rick:

Assuming you have little Ruby experience and no Rails experience I think
your best plan would be to familiarize yourself with RubyOnRails tutorials
at: Getting Started with Rails — Ruby on Rails Guides (a full tree
provided by the RoR development group covering major Rails components),
and: Chapter 1: From zero to deploy | Ruby on Rails Tutorial | Learn Enough to Be Dangerous (a very
good book by Michael H. with the apt sub-title “Learn Web D.
with Rails”). Both are free online.

I finished the first chapter of Rails Tutorial, and I have this
https://github.com/arslanfarooq/first_app and
http://fast-beyond-5656.herokuapp.com/

This was really fun and I believe when I finish this whole tutorial I’ll
learn a lot.

But I have a 2 week deadline (actually I set the duration myself when
they
asked me how long will it take). So today I decided to first make this
in
PHP. Once this app is finished and tested in PHP, then I’ll come back to
making it in Rails.

Your application looks like a good one for a first effort with two models:
User and Item. Members of the User class can have roles associated with
them, i.e.: Manager, Employee, and Administrator. The Item class will be a
direct map of the spreadsheet, members will have fields that mirror the
spreadsheet columns. The Item search can be nicely built into the item
controller’s index method and the item edit restriction can be enforced by
keying off the user’s role in the controller methods and views.

What you are saying is kind of making sense, and I feel this may serve
like
a rough plan for what I want to achieve. Thank you!

I would suggest that, at least initially, you use a snapshot of the
company’s spreadsheet to populate a database that you will use for all
development, test, and functional acceptance.

I actually did this today in PHP, I imported the Excel data in the
database. And the search form is working… kind of. It is pulling the
results, but I need to grab a relational database book and look for ways
to
optimize my search query.

I have decided to make two search forms. One search form to search using
details of a product, and another form to search using details of a
person.

My SQL knowledge is very basic, and to give a clear idea of my skill
level,
I am a WordPress developer. So when I said I know how to make this in
PHP
and MySQL; I should have said I have an idea how to make this in PHP
and
MySQL.

Right now I need to formulate a smart query when search form is
submitted.
My current query is too simple and does not give the desired results in
many cases. Gives desired results in one particular way :slight_smile: Which sucks.

You can then segregate out a separate task to either provide functions to
import and export the excel based data. I would suggest that the final
design might want to have the data held in a database with a publish
capability with an excel format (and/or pdf, and/or …) that has the
published date/time as part of the page header.

Client did say to implement the print search results feature. So I’ll
use
the pdf option.

Be sure to learn how to test your app, validate your data, and have fun.

Thank you Rick!

Colin:

+1 to those suggestions. To start developing an app before working
right through a good rails tutorial will just result in wasting a lot
of time.

Yes I completely agree.

The railstutorial.org example will give you some useful
stuff such as user authentication that you can use in your app

I will definitely finish that tutorial once this app is done in PHP.

And for that, I just need to get the search to work nicely. I already
implemented Twitter Bootstrap for PHP version so interface is already
good
and responsive.

Thank you guys for your help and input. God bless you all.

I don’t want to ask for the SQL here. I’ll use appropriate forums etc.

– arslan