# [pg_search](http://github.com/Casecommons/pg_search/) [![Gem Version](https://img.shields.io/gem/v/pg_search.svg?style=flat)](https://rubygems.org/gems/pg_search) [![Build Status](https://secure.travis-ci.org/Casecommons/pg_search.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/Casecommons/pg_search) [![Code Climate](https://img.shields.io/codeclimate/github/Casecommons/pg_search.svg?style=flat)](https://codeclimate.com/github/Casecommons/pg_search) [![Test Coverage](https://codeclimate.com/github/Casecommons/pg_search/badges/coverage.svg)](https://codeclimate.com/github/Casecommons/pg_search/coverage) [![Dependency Status](https://img.shields.io/gemnasium/Casecommons/pg_search.svg?style=flat)](https://gemnasium.com/Casecommons/pg_search) [![Inline docs](http://inch-ci.org/github/Casecommons/pg_search.svg?branch=master&style=flat)](http://inch-ci.org/github/Casecommons/pg_search) [![Join the chat at https://gitter.im/Casecommons/pg_search](https://img.shields.io/badge/gitter-join%20chat-blue.svg)](https://gitter.im/Casecommons/pg_search?utm_source=badge&utm_medium=badge&utm_campaign=pr-badge&utm_content=badge) ## DESCRIPTION PgSearch builds named scopes that take advantage of PostgreSQL's full text search. Read the blog post introducing PgSearch at http://blog.pivotal.io/labs/labs/pg-search ## REQUIREMENTS * Ruby 1.9.2, 2.0, or later * Active Record 3.1, 3.2, 4.0 or later * PostgreSQL * [PostgreSQL contrib packages for certain features](https://github.com/Casecommons/pg_search/wiki/Installing-Postgres-Contrib-Modules) ## INSTALL ```bash $ gem install pg_search ``` ### Rails 3.1, 3.2, 4.0 or later, Ruby 1.9.2, 2.0, or later In Gemfile ```ruby gem 'pg_search' ``` ### Rails 3.0 The newest versions of PgSearch no longer support Rails 3.0. However, the 0.5 series still works. It's not actively maintained, but submissions are welcome for backports and bugfixes. ```ruby gem 'pg_search', "~> 0.5.7" ``` The 0.5 branch lives at https://github.com/Casecommons/pg_search/tree/0.5-stable ### Rails 2 The newest versions of PgSearch no longer support Rails 2. However, the 0.2 series still works. It's not actively maintained, but submissions are welcome for backports and bugfixes. ```ruby gem 'pg_search', "~> 0.2.0" ``` The 0.2 branch lives at https://github.com/Casecommons/pg_search/tree/0.2-stable ### Other Active Record projects In addition to installing and requiring the gem, you may want to include the PgSearch rake tasks in your Rakefile. This isn't necessary for Rails projects, which gain the Rake tasks via a Railtie. ```ruby load "pg_search/tasks.rb" ``` ### Ruby 1.8.7 or earlier The newest versions of PgSearch no longer support Ruby 1.8.7. However, the 0.6 series still works. It's not actively maintained, but submissions are welcome for backports and bugfixes. ```ruby gem 'pg_search', "~> 0.6.4" ``` The 0.6 branch lives at https://github.com/Casecommons/pg_search/tree/0.6-stable ## USAGE To add PgSearch to an Active Record model, simply include the PgSearch module. ```ruby class Shape < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch end ``` ### Multi-search vs. search scopes pg_search supports two different techniques for searching, multi-search and search scopes. The first technique is multi-search, in which records of many different Active Record classes can be mixed together into one global search index across your entire application. Most sites that want to support a generic search page will want to use this feature. The other technique is search scopes, which allow you to do more advanced searching against only one Active Record class. This is more useful for building things like autocompleters or filtering a list of items in a faceted search. ### Multi-search #### Setup Before using multi-search, you must generate and run a migration to create the pg_search_documents database table. ```bash $ rails g pg_search:migration:multisearch $ rake db:migrate ``` #### multisearchable To add a model to the global search index for your application, call multisearchable in its class definition. ```ruby class EpicPoem < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch multisearchable :against => [:title, :author] end class Flower < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch multisearchable :against => :color end ``` If this model already has existing records, you will need to reindex this model to get existing records into the pg_search_documents table. See the rebuild task below. Whenever a record is created, updated, or destroyed, an Active Record callback will fire, leading to the creation of a corresponding PgSearch::Document record in the pg_search_documents table. The :against option can be one or several methods which will be called on the record to generate its search text. You can also pass a Proc or method name to call to determine whether or not a particular record should be included. ```ruby class Convertible < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch multisearchable :against => [:make, :model], :if => :available_in_red? end class Jalopy < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch multisearchable :against => [:make, :model], :if => lambda { |record| record.model_year > 1970 } end ``` Note that the Proc or method name is called in an after_save hook. This means that you should be careful when using Time or other objects. In the following example, if the record was last saved before the published_at timestamp, it won't get listed in global search at all until it is touched again after the timestamp. ```ruby class AntipatternExample include PgSearch multisearchable :against => [:contents], :if => :published? def published? published_at < Time.now end end problematic_record = AntipatternExample.create!( :contents => "Using :if with a timestamp", :published_at => 10.minutes.from_now ) problematic_record.published? # => false PgSearch.multisearch("timestamp") # => No results sleep 20.minutes problematic_record.published? # => true PgSearch.multisearch("timestamp") # => No results problematic_record.save! problematic_record.published? # => true PgSearch.multisearch("timestamp") # => Includes problematic_record ``` #### Multi-search associations Two associations are built automatically. On the original record, there is a has_one :pg_search_document association pointing to the PgSearch::Document record, and on the PgSearch::Document record there is a belongs_to :searchable polymorphic association pointing back to the original record. ```ruby odyssey = EpicPoem.create!(:title => "Odyssey", :author => "Homer") search_document = odyssey.pg_search_document #=> PgSearch::Document instance search_document.searchable #=> # ``` #### Searching in the global search index To fetch the PgSearch::Document entries for all of the records that match a given query, use PgSearch.multisearch. ```ruby odyssey = EpicPoem.create!(:title => "Odyssey", :author => "Homer") rose = Flower.create!(:color => "Red") PgSearch.multisearch("Homer") #=> [#] PgSearch.multisearch("Red") #=> [#] ``` #### Chaining method calls onto the results PgSearch.multisearch returns an ActiveRecord::Relation, just like scopes do, so you can chain scope calls to the end. This works with gems like Kaminari that add scope methods. Just like with regular scopes, the database will only receive SQL requests when necessary. ```ruby PgSearch.multisearch("Bertha").limit(10) PgSearch.multisearch("Juggler").where(:searchable_type => "Occupation") PgSearch.multisearch("Alamo").page(3).per_page(30) PgSearch.multisearch("Diagonal").find_each do |document| puts document.searchable.updated_at end ``` #### Configuring multi-search PgSearch.multisearch can be configured using the same options as `pg_search_scope` (explained in more detail below). Just set the PgSearch.multisearch_options in an initializer: ```ruby PgSearch.multisearch_options = { :using => [:tsearch, :trigram], :ignoring => :accents } ``` #### Rebuilding search documents for a given class If you change the :against option on a class, add multisearchable to a class that already has records in the database, or remove multisearchable from a class in order to remove it from the index, you will find that the pg_search_documents table could become out-of-sync with the actual records in your other tables. The index can also become out-of-sync if you ever modify records in a way that does not trigger Active Record callbacks. For instance, the #update_attribute instance method and the .update_all class method both skip callbacks and directly modify the database. To remove all of the documents for a given class, you can simply delete all of the PgSearch::Document records. ```ruby PgSearch::Document.delete_all(:searchable_type => "Animal") ``` To regenerate the documents for a given class, run: ```ruby PgSearch::Multisearch.rebuild(Product) ``` This is also available as a Rake task, for convenience. $ rake pg_search:multisearch:rebuild[BlogPost] A second optional argument can be passed to specify the PostgreSQL schema search path to use, for multi-tenant databases that have multiple pg_search_documents tables. The following will set the schema search path to "my_schema" before reindexing. $ rake pg_search:multisearch:rebuild[BlogPost,my_schema] For models that are multisearchable :against methods that directly map to Active Record attributes, an efficient single SQL statement is run to update the pg_search_documents table all at once. However, if you call any dynamic methods in :against, the following strategy will be used: ```ruby PgSearch::Document.delete_all(:searchable_type => "Ingredient") Ingredient.find_each { |record| record.update_pg_search_document } ``` You can also provide a custom implementation for rebuilding the documents by adding a class method called `rebuild_pg_search_documents` to your model. ```ruby class Movie < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :director def director_name director.name end multisearchable against: [:name, :director_name] # Naive approach def self.rebuild_pg_search_documents find_each { |record| record.update_pg_search_document } end # More sophisticated approach def self.rebuild_pg_search_documents connection.execute <<-SQL INSERT INTO pg_search_documents (searchable_type, searchable_id, content, created_at, updated_at) SELECT 'Movie' AS searchable_type, movies.id AS searchable_id, (movies.name || ' ' || directors.name) AS content, now() AS created_at, now() AS updated_at FROM movies LEFT JOIN directors ON directors.id = movies.director_id SQL end end ``` #### Disabling multi-search indexing temporarily If you have a large bulk operation to perform, such as importing a lot of records from an external source, you might want to speed things up by turning off indexing temporarily. You could then use one of the techniques above to rebuild the search documents off-line. ```ruby PgSearch.disable_multisearch do Movie.import_from_xml_file(File.open("movies.xml")) end ``` ### pg_search_scope You can use pg_search_scope to build a search scope. The first parameter is a scope name, and the second parameter is an options hash. The only required option is :against, which tells pg_search_scope which column or columns to search against. #### Searching against one column To search against a column, pass a symbol as the :against option. ```ruby class BlogPost < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :search_by_title, :against => :title end ``` We now have an ActiveRecord scope named search_by_title on our BlogPost model. It takes one parameter, a search query string. ```ruby BlogPost.create!(:title => "Recent Developments in the World of Pastrami") BlogPost.create!(:title => "Prosciutto and You: A Retrospective") BlogPost.search_by_title("pastrami") # => [#] ``` #### Searching against multiple columns Just pass an Array if you'd like to search more than one column. ```ruby class Person < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :search_by_full_name, :against => [:first_name, :last_name] end ``` Now our search query can match either or both of the columns. ```ruby person_1 = Person.create!(:first_name => "Grant", :last_name => "Hill") person_2 = Person.create!(:first_name => "Hugh", :last_name => "Grant") Person.search_by_full_name("Grant") # => [person_1, person_2] Person.search_by_full_name("Grant Hill") # => [person_1] ``` #### Dynamic search scopes Just like with Active Record named scopes, you can pass in a Proc object that returns a hash of options. For instance, the following scope takes a parameter that dynamically chooses which column to search against. Important: The returned hash must include a :query key. Its value does not necessary have to be dynamic. You could choose to hard-code it to a specific value if you wanted. ```ruby class Person < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :search_by_name, lambda do |name_part, query| raise ArgumentError unless [:first, :last].include?(name_part) { :against => name_part, :query => query } end end person_1 = Person.create!(:first_name => "Grant", :last_name => "Hill") person_2 = Person.create!(:first_name => "Hugh", :last_name => "Grant") Person.search_by_name :first, "Grant" # => [person_1] Person.search_by_name :last, "Grant" # => [person_2] ``` #### Searching through associations It is possible to search columns on associated models. Note that if you do this, it will be impossible to speed up searches with database indexes. However, it is supported as a quick way to try out cross-model searching. In PostgreSQL 8.3 and earlier, you must install a utility function into your database. To generate and run a migration for this, run: $ rails g pg_search:migration:associated_against $ rake db:migrate This migration is safe to run against newer versions of PostgreSQL as well. It will essentially do nothing. You can pass a Hash into the :associated_against option to set up searching through associations. The keys are the names of the associations and the value works just like an :against option for the other model. Right now, searching deeper than one association away is not supported. You can work around this by setting up a series of :through associations to point all the way through. ```ruby class Cracker < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :cheeses end class Cheese < ActiveRecord::Base end class Salami < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch belongs_to :cracker has_many :cheeses, :through => :cracker pg_search_scope :tasty_search, :associated_against => { :cheeses => [:kind, :brand], :cracker => :kind } end salami_1 = Salami.create! salami_2 = Salami.create! salami_3 = Salami.create! limburger = Cheese.create!(:kind => "Limburger") brie = Cheese.create!(:kind => "Brie") pepper_jack = Cheese.create!(:kind => "Pepper Jack") Cracker.create!(:kind => "Black Pepper", :cheeses => [brie], :salami => salami_1) Cracker.create!(:kind => "Ritz", :cheeses => [limburger, pepper_jack], :salami => salami_2) Cracker.create!(:kind => "Graham", :cheeses => [limburger], :salami => salami_3) Salami.tasty_search("pepper") # => [salami_1, salami_2] ``` ### Searching using different search features By default, pg_search_scope uses the built-in [PostgreSQL text search](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/textsearch-intro.html). If you pass the :using option to pg_search_scope, you can choose alternative search techniques. ```ruby class Beer < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :search_name, :against => :name, :using => [:tsearch, :trigram, :dmetaphone] end ``` The currently implemented features are * :tsearch - [Full text search](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/textsearch-intro.html) (built-in with 8.3 and later, available as a contrib package for some earlier versions) * :trigram - [Trigram search](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/pgtrgm.html), which requires the trigram contrib package * :dmetaphone - [Double Metaphone search](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/fuzzystrmatch.html#AEN124771), which requires the fuzzystrmatch contrib package #### :tsearch (Full Text Search) PostgreSQL's built-in full text search supports weighting, prefix searches, and stemming in multiple languages. ##### Weighting Each searchable column can be given a weight of "A", "B", "C", or "D". Columns with earlier letters are weighted higher than those with later letters. So, in the following example, the title is the most important, followed by the subtitle, and finally the content. ```ruby class NewsArticle < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :search_full_text, :against => { :title => 'A', :subtitle => 'B', :content => 'C' } end ``` You can also pass the weights in as an array of arrays, or any other structure that responds to #each and yields either a single symbol or a symbol and a weight. If you omit the weight, a default will be used. ```ruby class NewsArticle < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :search_full_text, :against => [ [:title, 'A'], [:subtitle, 'B'], [:content, 'C'] ] end class NewsArticle < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :search_full_text, :against => [ [:title, 'A'], {:subtitle => 'B'}, :content ] end ``` ##### :prefix (PostgreSQL 8.4 and newer only) PostgreSQL's full text search matches on whole words by default. If you want to search for partial words, however, you can set :prefix to true. Since this is a :tsearch-specific option, you should pass it to :tsearch directly, as shown in the following example. ```ruby class Superhero < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :whose_name_starts_with, :against => :name, :using => { :tsearch => {:prefix => true} } end batman = Superhero.create :name => 'Batman' batgirl = Superhero.create :name => 'Batgirl' robin = Superhero.create :name => 'Robin' Superhero.whose_name_starts_with("Bat") # => [batman, batgirl] ``` ##### :negation PostgreSQL's full text search matches all search terms by default. If you want to exclude certain words, you can set :negation to true. Then any term that begins with an exclamation point `!` will be excluded from the results. Since this is a :tsearch-specific option, you should pass it to :tsearch directly, as shown in the following example. Note that combining this with other search features can have unexpected results. For example, :trigram searches don't have a concept of excluded terms, and thus if you use both :tsearch and :trigram in tandem, you may still find results that contain the term that you were trying to exclude. ```ruby class Animal < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :with_name_matching, :against => :name, :using => { :tsearch => {:negation => true} } end one_fish = Animal.create(:name => "one fish") two_fish = Animal.create(:name => "two fish") red_fish = Animal.create(:name => "red fish") blue_fish = Animal.create(:name => "blue fish") Animal.with_name_matching("fish !red !blue") # => [one_fish, two_fish] ``` ##### :dictionary PostgreSQL full text search also support multiple dictionaries for stemming. You can learn more about how dictionaries work by reading the [PostgreSQL documention](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/textsearch-dictionaries.html). If you use one of the language dictionaries, such as "english", then variants of words (e.g. "jumping" and "jumped") will match each other. If you don't want stemming, you should pick the "simple" dictionary which does not do any stemming. If you don't specify a dictionary, the "simple" dictionary will be used. ```ruby class BoringTweet < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :kinda_matching, :against => :text, :using => { :tsearch => {:dictionary => "english"} } pg_search_scope :literally_matching, :against => :text, :using => { :tsearch => {:dictionary => "simple"} } end sleepy = BoringTweet.create! :text => "I snoozed my alarm for fourteen hours today. I bet I can beat that tomorrow! #sleepy" sleeping = BoringTweet.create! :text => "You know what I like? Sleeping. That's what. #enjoyment" sleeper = BoringTweet.create! :text => "Have you seen Woody Allen's movie entitled Sleeper? Me neither. #boycott" BoringTweet.kinda_matching("sleeping") # => [sleepy, sleeping, sleeper] BoringTweet.literally_matching("sleeping") # => [sleeping] ``` ##### :normalization PostgreSQL supports multiple algorithms for ranking results against queries. For instance, you might want to consider overall document size or the distance between multiple search terms in the original text. This option takes an integer, which is passed directly to PostgreSQL. According to the latest [PostgreSQL documentation](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/textsearch-controls.html), the supported algorithms are: 0 (the default) ignores the document length 1 divides the rank by 1 + the logarithm of the document length 2 divides the rank by the document length 4 divides the rank by the mean harmonic distance between extents 8 divides the rank by the number of unique words in document 16 divides the rank by 1 + the logarithm of the number of unique words in document 32 divides the rank by itself + 1 This integer is a bitmask, so if you want to combine algorithms, you can add their numbers together. (e.g. to use algorithms 1, 8, and 32, you would pass 1 + 8 + 32 = 41) ```ruby class BigLongDocument < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :regular_search, :against => :text pg_search_scope :short_search, :against => :text, :using => { :tsearch => {:normalization => 2} } long = BigLongDocument.create!(:text => "Four score and twenty years ago") short = BigLongDocument.create!(:text => "Four score") BigLongDocument.regular_search("four score") #=> [long, short] BigLongDocument.short_search("four score") #=> [short, long] ``` ##### :any_word Setting this attribute to true will perform a search which will return all models containing any word in the search terms. ```ruby class Number < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :search_any_word, :against => :text, :using => { :tsearch => {:any_word => true} } pg_search_scope :search_all_words, :against => :text end one = Number.create! :text => 'one' two = Number.create! :text => 'two' three = Number.create! :text => 'three' Number.search_any_word('one two three') # => [one, two, three] Number.search_all_words('one two three') # => [] ``` ##### :sort_only Setting this attribute to true will make this feature available for sorting, but will not include it in the query's WHERE condition. ```ruby class Person < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :search, :against => :name, :using => { :tsearch => {:any_word => true} :dmetaphone => {:any_word => true, :sort_only => true} } end exact = Person.create!(:name => 'ash hines') one_exact_one_close = Person.create!(:name => 'ash heinz') one_exact = Person.create!(:name => 'ash smith') one_close = Person.create!(:name => 'leigh heinz') Person.search('ash hines') # => [exact, one_exact_one_close, one_exact] ``` #### :dmetaphone (Double Metaphone soundalike search) [Double Metaphone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Metaphone) is an algorithm for matching words that sound alike even if they are spelled very differently. For example, "Geoff" and "Jeff" sound identical and thus match. Currently, this is not a true double-metaphone, as only the first metaphone is used for searching. Double Metaphone support is currently available as part of the [fuzzystrmatch contrib package](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/fuzzystrmatch.html) that must be installed before this feature can be used. In addition to the contrib package, you must install a utility function into your database. To generate and run a migration for this, run: $ rails g pg_search:migration:dmetaphone $ rake db:migrate The following example shows how to use :dmetaphone. ```ruby class Word < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :that_sounds_like, :against => :spelling, :using => :dmetaphone end four = Word.create! :spelling => 'four' far = Word.create! :spelling => 'far' fur = Word.create! :spelling => 'fur' five = Word.create! :spelling => 'five' Word.that_sounds_like("fir") # => [four, far, fur] ``` #### :trigram (Trigram search) Trigram search works by counting how many three-letter substrings (or "trigrams") match between the query and the text. For example, the string "Lorem ipsum" can be split into the following trigrams: [" Lo", "Lor", "ore", "rem", "em ", "m i", " ip", "ips", "psu", "sum", "um ", "m "] Trigram search has some ability to work even with typos and misspellings in the query or text. Trigram support is currently available as part of the [pg_trgm contrib package](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/pgtrgm.html) that must be installed before this feature can be used. ```ruby class Website < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :kinda_spelled_like, :against => :name, :using => :trigram end yahooo = Website.create! :name => "Yahooo!" yohoo = Website.create! :name => "Yohoo!" gogle = Website.create! :name => "Gogle" facebook = Website.create! :name => "Facebook" Website.kinda_spelled_like("Yahoo!") # => [yahooo, yohoo] ``` ##### :threshold By default, trigram searches find records which have a similarity of at least 0.3 using pg_trgm's calculations. You may specify a custom threshold if you prefer. Higher numbers match more strictly, and thus return fewer results. Lower numbers match more permissively, letting in more results. ```ruby class Vegetable < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :strictly_spelled_like, :against => :name, :using => { :trigram => { :threshold => 0.5 } } pg_search_scope :roughly_spelled_like, :against => :name, :using => { :trigram => { :threshold => 0.1 } } end cauliflower = Vegetable.create! :name => "cauliflower" Vegetable.roughly_spelled_like("couliflower") # => [cauliflower] Vegetable.strictly_spelled_like("couliflower") # => [cauliflower] Vegetable.roughly_spelled_like("collyflower") # => [cauliflower] Vegetable.strictly_spelled_like("collyflower") # => [] ``` ### Limiting Fields When Combining Features Sometimes when doing queries combining different features you might want to searching against only some of the fields with certain features. For example perhaps you want to only do a trigram search against the shorter fields so that you don't need to reduce the threshold excessively. You can specify which fields using the 'only' option: ```ruby class Image < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :combined_search, :against => [:file_name, :short_description, :long_description] :using => { :tsearch => { :dictionary => 'english' }, :trigram => { :only => [:file_name, :short_description] } } end ``` Now you can succesfully retrieve an Image with a file_name: 'image_foo.jpg' and long_description: 'This description is so long that it would make a trigram search fail any reasonable threshold limit' with: ```ruby Image.combined_search('reasonable') # found with tsearch Image.combined_search('foo') # found with trigram ``` ### Ignoring accent marks (PostgreSQL 9.0 and newer only) Most of the time you will want to ignore accent marks when searching. This makes it possible to find words like "piñata" when searching with the query "pinata". If you set a pg_search_scope to ignore accents, it will ignore accents in both the searchable text and the query terms. Ignoring accents uses the [unaccent contrib package](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/unaccent.html) that must be installed before this feature can be used. ```ruby class SpanishQuestion < ActiveRecord::Base include PgSearch pg_search_scope :gringo_search, :against => :word, :ignoring => :accents end what = SpanishQuestion.create(:word => "Qué") how_many = SpanishQuestion.create(:word => "Cuánto") how = SpanishQuestion.create(:word => "Cómo") SpanishQuestion.gringo_search("Que") # => [what] SpanishQuestion.gringo_search("Cüåñtô") # => [how_many] ``` Advanced users may wish to add indexes for the expressions that pg_search generates. Unfortunately, the unaccent function supplied by this contrib package is not indexable (as of PostgreSQL 9.1). Thus, you may want to write your own wrapper function and use it instead. This can be configured by calling the following code, perhaps in an initializer. ```ruby PgSearch.unaccent_function = "my_unaccent" ``` ### Using tsvector columns PostgreSQL allows you the ability to search against a column with type tsvector instead of using an expression; this speeds up searching dramatically as it offloads creation of the tsvector that the tsquery is evaluated against. To use this functionality you'll need to do a few things: * Create a column of type tsvector that you'd like to search against. If you want to search using multiple search methods, for example tsearch and dmetaphone, you'll need a column for each. * Create a trigger function that will update the column(s) using the expression appropriate for that type of search. See: [the PostgreSQL documentation for text search triggers](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/textsearch-features.html#TEXTSEARCH-UPDATE-TRIGGERS) * Should you have any pre-existing data in the table, update the newly-created tsvector columns with the expression that your trigger function uses. * Add the option to pg_search_scope, e.g: ```ruby pg_search_scope :fast_content_search, :against => :content, :using => { dmetaphone: { tsvector_column: 'tsvector_content_dmetaphone' }, tsearch: { dictionary: 'english', tsvector_column: 'tsvector_content_tsearch' } trigram: {} # trigram does not use tsvectors } ``` * You cannot dump a `tsvector` column to `schema.rb`. Instead, you need to switch to using the native PostgreSQL SQL format schema dump. In your `config/application.rb` you should set config.active_record.schema_format = :sql Read more about it here: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/migrations.html#types-of-schema-dumps Please note that the :against column is only used when the tsvector_column is not present for the search type. #### Combining multiple tsvectors It's possible to search against more than one tsvector at a time. This could be useful if you want to maintain multiple search scopes but do not want to maintain separate tsvectors for each scope. For example: ```ruby pg_search_scope :search_title, :against => :title, :using => { :tsearch => { :tsvector_column => "title_tsvector" } } pg_search_scope :search_body, :against => :body, :using => { :tsearch => { :tsvector_column => "body_tsvector" } } pg_search_scope :search_title_and_body, :against => [:title, :body], :using => { :tsearch => { :tsvector_column => ["title_tsvector", "body_tsvector"] } } ``` ### Configuring ranking and ordering #### :ranked_by (Choosing a ranking algorithm) By default, pg_search ranks results based on the :tsearch similarity between the searchable text and the query. To use a different ranking algorithm, you can pass a :ranked_by option to pg_search_scope. ```ruby pg_search_scope :search_by_tsearch_but_rank_by_trigram, :against => :title, :using => [:tsearch], :ranked_by => ":trigram" ``` Note that :ranked_by using a String to represent the ranking expression. This allows for more complex possibilities. Strings like ":tsearch", ":trigram", and ":dmetaphone" are automatically expanded into the appropriate SQL expressions. ```ruby # Weighted ranking to balance multiple approaches :ranked_by => ":dmetaphone + (0.25 * :trigram)" # A more complex example, where books.num_pages is an integer column in the table itself :ranked_by => "(books.num_pages * :trigram) + (:tsearch / 2.0)" ``` #### :order_within_rank (Breaking ties) PostgreSQL does not guarantee a consistent order when multiple records have the same value in the ORDER BY clause. This can cause trouble with pagination. Imagine a case where 12 records all have the same ranking value. If you use a pagination library such as [kaminari](https://github.com/amatsuda/kaminari) or [will_paginate](https://github.com/mislav/will_paginate) to return results in pages of 10, then you would expect to see 10 of the records on page 1, and the remaining 2 records at the top of the next page, ahead of lower-ranked results. But since there is no consistent ordering, PostgreSQL might choose to rearrange the order of those 12 records between different SQL statements. You might end up getting some of the same records from page 1 on page 2 as well, and likewise there may be records that don't show up at all. pg_search fixes this problem by adding a second expression to the ORDER BY clause, after the :ranked_by expression explained above. By default, the tiebreaker order is ascending by id. ORDER BY [complicated :ranked_by expression...], id ASC This might not be desirable for your application, especially if you do not want old records to outrank new records. By passing an :order_within_rank, you can specify an alternate tiebreaker expression. A common example would be descending by updated_at, to rank the most recently updated records first. ```ruby pg_search_scope :search_and_break_ties_by_latest_update, :against => [:title, :content], :order_within_rank => "blog_posts.updated_at DESC" ``` #### PgSearch#pg_search_rank (Reading a record's rank as a Float) It may be useful or interesting to see the rank of a particular record. This can be helpful for debugging why one record outranks another. You could also use it to show some sort of relevancy value to end users of an application. To retrieve the rank, call `.with_pg_search_rank` on a scope, and then call `.pg_search_rank` on a returned record. ```ruby shirt_brands = ShirtBrand.search_by_name("Penguin").with_pg_search_rank shirt_brands[0].pg_search_rank #=> 0.0759909 shirt_brands[1].pg_search_rank #=> 0.0607927 ``` #### Search rank and chained scopes Each PgSearch scope generates a named subquery for the search rank. If you chain multiple scopes then PgSearch will generate a ranking query for each scope, so the ranking queries must have unique names. If you need to reference the ranking query (e.g. in a GROUP BY clause) you can regenerate the subquery name with the `PgScope::Configuration.alias` method by passing the name of the queried table. ```ruby shirt_brands = ShirtBrand.search_by_name("Penguin") .joins(:shirt_sizes) .group_by('shirt_brands.id, #{PgSearch::Configuration.alias('shirt_brands')}.rank') ``` ## ATTRIBUTIONS PgSearch would not have been possible without inspiration from texticle (now renamed [textacular](https://github.com/textacular/textacular)). Thanks to [Aaron Patterson](http://tenderlovemaking.com/) for the original version! ## CONTRIBUTIONS AND FEEDBACK Welcomed! Feel free to join and contribute to our [public Pivotal Tracker project](https://www.pivotaltracker.com/projects/228645) where we manage new feature ideas and bugs. We also have a [Google Group](http://groups.google.com/group/casecommons-dev) for discussing pg_search and other Case Commons open source projects. Please read our [CONTRIBUTING guide](https://github.com/Casecommons/pg_search/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md). ## LICENSE MIT