Search in belongs_to associations - ruby-on-rails

Question

sorry for the beginner's question, but I find it hard to understand:
I have assets, in the model:
class Asset < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :project
belongs_to :image
belongs_to :text
belongs_to :link
belongs_to :video
belongs_to :audio
def self.search(search)
if search
where('title LIKE ?', "%#{search}%")
else
scoped
end
end
end
each asset type has its own table and has_many :assets definition in their model. I'd like to search through the respective asset tables and get items with a specific title (then return them as list of assets). How would it formulate the query? Do I need to use searchlogic?

Answer 1

Is there a chance you describe a bit more what you are trying to achieve? You have an Asset table. It seems this is where you would put the "title" and return all rows where your LIKE search matches.
And instead of listing multiple belongs_to statements, you may want to make this a polymorphic table instead:
class Asset < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :assetable, :polymorphic => true
:
:
end
And then in each of the other models...
class Project < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :assets, :as => :assetable
end
In this way every asset would have a searchable record in Assets. Use the guides or watch Ryan Bates rails cast on polymorphic associations.
I look forward to further information.
## UPDATE ##
Inside your Asset model, create a class method (e.g. search) like this:
def self.search(params) # these are from your search form
self.where("title like ?", "%#{params[:search]}%"
end
Params[:search] is the params form your form, and the Asset model retrieves all the records which match. Your data set will have the assetable_id and assetable_type (which is the other model). You could display these as links or use this data to retrieve additional info for each model returned, etc.
The key here, as yo will read about and has been explained to me, is to push as much of this type of logic to the model (fat models) and keep your controllers thin.
Hope this helps!