Rails - Nov 2006 - Seeking help constructing SQL Queries from search pages with many optional attributes

For a recent project I had to construct an advanced search page with some
ranges and some select boxes, all of which are optional.  The difficulty
came in figuring out a way to construct a proper SQL query from the options
provided.  I hacked one together that works for the time being, but I would
like to know how this is done properly.  Does anyone have any links to
references where this is explained, preferably in a Ruby/Rails setting, but
other languages would be fine as well.

Thanks in advance,
--Tyler Prete
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