This is a Turbocharged real-time search build with Ruby on Rails 7. It allows users to search for the articles, and then have analytics that display what users were searching for.

Archetecture

The application has three tables in the database;

• Users:

    - username
    - email
    - password
  

• Articles:

    - title
    - body
  

• UserSearches:

    - title
    - user_id
  

Realtime features

To efficiently query the database for the searched items, I used PgSearch gem which takes advantage of PostgreSQL's full text search.

class Article < ApplicationRecord
    include PgSearch::Model

    pg_search_scope :article_search,
                    against: [:title],
                    using: { tsearch: { prefix: true } }
end

I used pg_search_scope to build a search scope. The parameter article_search is a scope name, and the :against, tells pg_search_scope which column or columns to search against. The :tsearch (Full Text Search) feature with prefix: true option, match the prefix of the items with the input query.

In the controller I passed params[:query] to the :article_search which contain user input. The user input is then used to search in the :title column, matched results are then stored in a @search_results variable which is iterated and passed to the save_results method.

    def search
        if params[:query].present?
            @search_results = Article.article_search(params[:query])
            @search_results.each do |article|
                save_results(article.title)
            end
        else
            @search_results = []
        end
    end

The save_results method receives the titles from search results and saves them the to user_searches table.

      def save_results(data)
          results = UserSearch.new(title: data, user_id: current_user.id)
          results.save!
      end

Automatic Realtime Search

To make the automatic realtime search, I used Stimulus JS that comes with Rails 7. In the app/javascript/controllers/search_form.js, I wrote the following code.

import { Controller } from "@hotwired/stimulus"

export default class extends Controller {
    search() {
        clearTimeout(this.timeout)
            this.timeout = setTimeout(() => {
                this.element.requestSubmit()
        }, 1000)
    }
}

The search() method is called as a user triggers the input event on the text field. Then the javascript function setTimeout submits the form every 1 second. The clearTimeout function is called each time an input event gets triggered to act as a looping mechanism for the life span of the input event. The data-controller element is needed to make javascript work in the form.

<%= form_with(url: search_articles_path, method: :post, data: {controller: "search-form", turbo_frame: "articles", turbo_action: "advance"}, class: "form-outline mb-4") do |form| %>
        <%= form.label :query, "Search by title:", class: "form-label" %>
        <%= form.text_field :query, class: "form-control", data: {action: "input->search-form#search"} %>
<% end %>

Here we listen for the input event and then target the stimulus controller search method. (data: {action: "input->search-form#search"}).

Built With

• Ruby on Rails
• Bootstrap
• Ruby
• Stimulus JS

Getting Started

To get a local copy up and running follow these simple example steps.

Prerequisites

• Ruby should be installed on your machine
• Install Ruby on Rails and PostgresQL

Setup

git clone https://github.com/Mwapsam/Search-engine.git
cd Search-engine

Install

bundle install

Play with the code

rails c

Populate the db with dummy data

rake db:migrate
rake db:seed

Run linters

rubocop -A

Start the application

rails s

Tests

rspec spec (run all tests)
rspec spec/name_of_folder/name_of_file.rb (run specific tests)

Author

👤 Mwape Samuel

• GitHub: @mwapsam
• Twitter: @mwapesamuel4
• LinkedIn: mwapsam

🤝 Contributing

Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome!

Feel free to check the issues page.

Show your support

Give a ⭐️ if you like this project!

Acknowledgments

• Many thanks to Helpjuice

📝 License

This project is MIT licensed.