Ferret talk - Jun 2006 - preventing indexing of an acts_as_ferret''d model?

Hi, this is hopefully an easy one, but I''ve gone through the api and
searched
past forum entries, and am drawing a blank.

I have a model that with acts_as_ferret mixed in to it, which is working fine.
But I want users to be able to set a ''private'' attribute on
the model, and when
it''s set to true, create and update methods would skip indexing. So,
how can I
prevent indexing of a usuaully-indexed model?

Any help greatly appreciated.

John

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Hi, John,

this might be wrong since I''m no expert in acts_as_ferret. But
I''ve scrolled
through
http://projects.jkraemer.net/acts_as_ferret/browser/trunk/plugin/acts_as_ferret/lib/acts_as_ferret.rb
and maybe it''s only me and you but I don''t see a
"keep_private" kind of flag
in acts_as_ferret.rb either.

So IMHO you''ve got two choices:

1. Without changes on acts_as_ferret.rb you might add a field
"keep_private"
to your model which you set to the user_id (or even better a salted hash) of
your users if they set it to true or leave it to the default
''0''. Then in
your queries you issue a query that returns only results where keep_private
is set to ''0'' OR your user_id (or the salted hash). This
should return only
documents that are either public or created by the current user.

2. If this is too insecure in your opinion (because you don''t trust
that no
documents would leak out) and you definitly want to keep private documents
from being indexed (which of course means that they aren''t searchable
for
the original creator either) then IMHO your best bet would be to fiddle
around with acts_as_ferret.rb yourself (it''s quite good documented) or
overwrite it''s instance methods in your model. You might then add a
small
check on the ferret_create for example if the model is private and therefore
needs to skip the indexing.

Cheers,
Jan
>
>
> On 6/17/06, John McGrath <jmcgrath at fryolator.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi, this is hopefully an easy one, but I''ve gone through the
api and
> > searched
> > past forum entries, and am drawing a blank.
> >
> > I have a model that with acts_as_ferret mixed in to it, which is
working
> > fine.
> > But I want users to be able to set a ''private''
attribute on the model,
> > and when
> > it''s set to true, create and update methods would skip
indexing. So, how
> > can I
> > prevent indexing of a usuaully-indexed model?
> >
> > Any help greatly appreciated.
> >
> > John
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------
> > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ferret-talk mailing list
> > Ferret-talk at rubyforge.org
> > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ferret-talk
> >
>
>
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thanks jan, both good suggestions. when time permits i might try the second. for
now i''m using a ridiculous hack, but it''s working: i let the
create method do
it''s thing, then if the ''private'' flag is set, i call
ferret_destroy for it. a
lot of useless overhead, to add to the index then immediately remove from it,
but since this db is read much more than it''s written to, this will at
least
hold us over for a while.

best,
john


Quoting Jan Prill <JanPrill at blauton.de>:
> Hi, John,
>
> this might be wrong since I''m no expert in acts_as_ferret. But
I''ve scrolled
> through
>
http://projects.jkraemer.net/acts_as_ferret/browser/trunk/plugin/acts_as_ferret/lib/acts_as_ferret.rb
> and maybe it''s only me and you but I don''t see a
"keep_private" kind of flag
> in acts_as_ferret.rb either.
>
> So IMHO you''ve got two choices:
>
> 1. Without changes on acts_as_ferret.rb you might add a field
"keep_private"
> to your model which you set to the user_id (or even better a salted hash)
of
> your users if they set it to true or leave it to the default
''0''. Then in
> your queries you issue a query that returns only results where keep_private
> is set to ''0'' OR your user_id (or the salted hash). This
should return only
> documents that are either public or created by the current user.
>
> 2. If this is too insecure in your opinion (because you don''t
trust that no
> documents would leak out) and you definitly want to keep private documents
> from being indexed (which of course means that they aren''t
searchable for
> the original creator either) then IMHO your best bet would be to fiddle
> around with acts_as_ferret.rb yourself (it''s quite good
documented) or
> overwrite it''s instance methods in your model. You might then add
a small
> check on the ferret_create for example if the model is private and
therefore
> needs to skip the indexing.
>
> Cheers,
> Jan
>
> >
> >
> > On 6/17/06, John McGrath <jmcgrath at fryolator.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi, this is hopefully an easy one, but I''ve gone through
the api and
> > > searched
> > > past forum entries, and am drawing a blank.
> > >
> > > I have a model that with acts_as_ferret mixed in to it, which is
working
> > > fine.
> > > But I want users to be able to set a ''private''
attribute on the model,
> > > and when
> > > it''s set to true, create and update methods would skip
indexing. So, how
> > > can I
> > > prevent indexing of a usuaully-indexed model?
> > >
> > > Any help greatly appreciated.
> > >
> > > John
> > >
> > > ----------------------------------------------------------------
> > > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Ferret-talk mailing list
> > > Ferret-talk at rubyforge.org
> > > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/ferret-talk
> > >
> >
> >
>



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