Rails - Jul 2010 - How to do a case insensitive search with multiple elements?

Hi

I have a smallish problem

If a = ["Joe","John"]

then

Model.find_all_by_firstname(a)

works well.

Except when the case of the characters is in dispute - how can I make
the finder method case insensitive? All the discussions I find concern
themselves with the singular case, but not with the case of an array
being passed.

Thanks for reading this!

Pieter
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Model.find_all_by_firstname(a.collect{|a| a.downcase})

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On 15 July 2010 09:05, Rob Nichols
<lists-fsXkhYbjdPsEEoCn2XhGlw@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> Model.find_all_by_firstname(a.collect{|a| a.downcase})
Will that work if the names in the db include upper case chars?  I
think the compare in the find needs to be case insensitive rather than
what is being compared against being forced to lower case.

Colin

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Colin Law wrote:
> On 15 July 2010 09:05, Rob Nichols
<lists-fsXkhYbjdPsEEoCn2XhGlw@public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> Model.find_all_by_firstname(a.collect{|a| a.downcase})
> 
> Will that work if the names in the db include upper case chars?  I
> think the compare in the find needs to be case insensitive rather than
> what is being compared against being forced to lower case.
> 
> Colin
If that''s the case, this will do it:

  class Model

    self.find_all_by_firstname(first_name)
      find(:all, :conditions => ["LOWER(firstname) = ?", 
first_name.downcase])
    end

  end
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On Jul 15, 2010, at 7:18 AM, Rob Nichols wrote:
> Colin Law wrote:
>> On 15 July 2010 09:05, Rob Nichols
<lists-fsXkhYbjdPsEEoCn2XhGlw@public.gmane.org> wrote:
>>> Model.find_all_by_firstname(a.collect{|a| a.downcase})
>>
>> Will that work if the names in the db include upper case chars?  I
>> think the compare in the find needs to be case insensitive rather  
>> than
>> what is being compared against being forced to lower case.
>>
>> Colin
>
> If that''s the case, this will do it:
>
>  class Model
>
>    self.find_all_by_firstname(first_name)
>      find(:all, :conditions => ["LOWER(firstname) = ?",
> first_name.downcase])
>    end
>
>  end
> -- 
>
As long as you''re aware that using LOWER(first_name) will prevent any  
use of an index on first_name.

You can also look at your particular database to see if it supports a  
case-insensitive match.  MySQL is case-insensitive by default (so I''m  
guessing that''s not what you''re using ;-)

If you''re using PostgreSQL, you probably could find this via Google:

http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/FAQ#How_do_I_perform_regular_expression_searches_and_case-insensitive_regular_expression_searches.3F_How_do_I_use_an_index_for_case-insensitive_searches.3F

Note the part that discusses the CITEXT type and the use of an index  
on the lower(column_name).

-Rob

Rob Biedenharn		
Rob-xa9cJyRlE0mWcWVYNo9pwxS2lgjeYSpx@public.gmane.org
http://AgileConsultingLLC.com/
rab-/VpnD74mH8+00s0LW7PaslaTQe2KTcn/@public.gmane.org	
http://GaslightSoftware.com/

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