This is a very minimalistic example of using ferret
to do full text searches in Rails model data. Tested with 
  Ruby 1.8.3, Rails 1.0 and Ferret 0.3.2.

You can install the latter with
  gem install ferret


The steps it took me to create this small demo project were:

Rails project setup
===================
These steps are pretty common and have nothing to do with ferret.

Create rails project
  rails ferret
  cd ferret

Create databases (if you don't use unix and/or sudo, use 'mysql -u root -p')
  sudo mysql

  create database ferret_development;
  create database ferret_test;
  grant all on ferret_development.* to 'ferret'@'localhost' identified by 'ferret';
  grant all on ferret_test.* to 'ferret'@'localhost' identified by 'ferret';
 
Create database schema
  mysql -u ferret -pferret ferret_development < db/schema.sql

Edit config/database.yml (user names and passwords)

Create content controller and model
script/generate scaffold Content

Running rake at this point should yield no errors. 
Otherwise check your database configuration.


Ferret integration
==================
Put acs_as_ferret plugin into vendor/plugin

Add ferret to the content model class:
  acts_as_ferret :fields => [ 'title', 'description' ]

Add unit tests for the find_by_contents method to content_test.rb.

running rake should succeed, and there should be an index in 
RAILS_ROOT/index/test/Content.

Extend the ContentController with a search method and create the search view
Add unit tests for the search method to content_controller_test.rb
Run rake again to see the tests pass. 
Remember that, as a good programmer, you would've written the tests first, 
before implementing the feature ;-)


Try it out
==========
Run the app with script/server and create some content objects. You should 
see the index in RAILS_ROOT/index/development/Content.

Try searching at http://localhost:3000/content/search


Please contact me if you find any bugs/problems within this howto or 
in the code.

Jens Kraemer <jk@jkraemer.net>
Feel free to use under the terms of the MIT license.