How can I search by a range of dates in Rails? - ruby-on-rails

Question

I've written a Rails controller function that queries a MySQL database looking for entries that were added within a certain date range. Something like the following, for instance:
#foos = FooTableModel.where(created > ? AND created <= ?', DateTime.new(2011, 1, 26), DateTime.new(2011, 1, 29))
This query works great for my purposes. What I would like to do, however, is to allow the user to set their desired date range rather than have it explicitly set. I've poked around with erb files somewhat and I've had great success accessing the data, I'm exclusively interested in altering what data I call for to display.
Are there any examples that are similar to what I'm trying to achieve? I assume this is a fairly common thing Rails developers would like to enable their users to do but I haven't had much luck with leads.

Answer 1

Where is your form code?
Here is a standard REST form:
<% form_tag(foo_path) do %>
<% select_date :start_date %>
<% select_date :end_date %>
<%= submit_tag "Submit", :disable_with => "Submitting..." %>
<% end %>
Then in your controller you can use the parameters to search by those dates.
start_date = params[:start_date]
end_date = params[:end_date]
Keep in mind foo_path needs to be restful route. If it is not then you need to pass a hash {:controller => 'foo', :action => "find"}
In your controller you can do something like this:
def index
if params[:start_date] && params[:end_date]
start_date = params[:start_date]
end_date = params[:end_date]
#foos = Foo.find(:all, :conditions => ['created_at BETWEEN ? AND ?,' start_date, end_date
end
responds_to do |format|
format.html
end
end