ActiverecordAnyOf

Introduction

This gem provides #any_of and #none_of on ActiveRecord.

#any_of is inspired by any_of from mongoid.

Its main purpose is to both :

• remove the need to write a sql string when we want an OR
• allows to write dynamic OR queries, which would be a pain with a string

Usage

#any_of

It allows to compute an OR like query that leverages AR's #where syntax:

basics

User.where.any_of(first_name: 'Joe', last_name: 'Joe')
# => SELECT * FROM users WHERE first_name = 'Joe' OR last_name = 'Joe'

grouped conditions

You can separate sets of hash condition by explicitly group them as hashes :

User.where.any_of({first_name: 'John', last_name: 'Joe'}, {first_name: 'Simon', last_name: 'Joe'})
# => SELECT * FROM users WHERE ( first_name = 'John' AND last_name = 'Joe' ) OR ( first_name = 'Simon' AND last_name = 'Joe' )

it's plain #where syntax

Each #any_of set is the same kind you would have passed to #where :

Client.where.any_of("orders_count = '2'", ["name = ?", 'Joe'], {email: 'joe@example.com'})

with relations

You can as well pass #any_of to other relations :

Client.where("orders_count = '2'").where.any_of({ email: 'joe@example.com' }, { email: 'john@example.com' })

with associations

And with associations :

User.find(1).posts.where.any_of({published: false}, "user_id IS NULL")

dynamic OR queries

The best part is that #any_of accepts other relations as parameter, to help compute dynamic OR queries :

banned_users = User.where(banned: true)
unconfirmed_users = User.where("confirmed_at IS NULL")
inactive_users = User.where.any_of(banned_users, unconfirmed_users)

#none_of

#none_of is the negative version of #any_of. This will return all active users :

banned_users = User.where(banned: true)
unconfirmed_users = User.where("confirmed_at IS NULL")
active_users = User.where.none_of(banned_users, unconfirmed_users)

Rails-3

activerecord_any_of uses WhereChain, which has been introduced in rails-4. In rails-3, simply call #any_of and #none_of directly, without using #where :

manual_removal = User.where(id: params[:users][:destroy_ids])
User.any_of(manual_removal, "email like '%@example.com'", {banned: true})
@company.users.any_of(manual_removal, "email like '%@example.com'", {banned: true})
User.where(offline: false).any_of( manual_removal, "email like '%@example.com'", {banned: true})

Installation

In your Gemfile :

gem 'activerecord_any_of'

Activerecord_any_of supports rails >= 3.2.13 and rails-4 (let me know if tests pass for rails < 3.2.13, I may edit gem dependencies).

Why not an #or method instead ?

User.where( "email LIKE '%@example.com" ).where( active: true ).or( offline: true )

What does this query do ? where (email LIKE '%@example.com' AND active = '1' ) OR offline = '1' ? Or where email LIKE '%@example.com' AND ( active = '1' OR offline = '1' ) ? This can quickly get messy and counter intuitive.

The MongoId solution is quite elegant. Using #any_of, it is made clear which conditions are grouped through OR and which are grouped through AND :

• User.where( "email LIKE '%@example.com" ).where.any_of({ active: true }, { offline: true })
• fakes = User.where( "email LIKE '%@example.com'" ).where( active: true ); User.where.any_of( fakes, { offline: true })

Running test

Testing is done using TravisCI. You can use the wonderful wwtd gem to run all tests locally. By default, the task to run is bundle exec rake spec, and will run against sqlite3 in memory. You can change the database like so: DB=postgresql bundle exec rake spec. Please note that you may need to change the credentials for your database in the database.yml file. Do not commit those changes.

Pull requests

This gem is extracted from a pull request made to activerecord core, and still hope to be merged. So, any pull request here should respects usual Rails contributing rules when it makes sense (especially : coding conventions) to make integration in source pull request easy.

Licence

MIT-LICENSE.