RQuery

RQuery is a small DSL inspired by RSpec for building text queries in languages like SQL. It is meant to be concise, easy to read, and expressive about what the query will be asking for.

Currently only the ActiveRecord extension is implemented with a Sqlite adapter. Mysql should be trivial to implement, and I'm hoping to get to supporting my own project Grove.

ActiveRecord

###Setup/Config

In you're rails environment file simply require rquery. The default adapter is the included Sqlite adapter but you can created and set your own with

RQuery::Config.adapter = class 

You can view both Sql and Sqlite in the adapters directory if you are interested in writing your own (mysql?). As a side note it would be nice at some point to decide the adapter based on the db chosen for a given environment.

###Sniper Scopes

Its now extremely easy to use rquery's dsl as named scopes. For example

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  sniper_scope :with_name do |user, passed_name|
    user.name == passed_name
  end
end

User.with_name('George')

The first parameter will be an object representing the user and the rest will be the parameters passed when the method is called. Since this functionality makes use of the named_scope method it can be chained with other sniper_scopes and named_scopes. If the name seems a bit odd, I'm open to other suggestions :D

###Examples

RQuery extend ActiveRecord to provide the where method. where accepts a single optional argument and a block that represents the query statements

In a given UsersController your show action might find the User like so:

@user = User.find(params[:age])

Using RQuery:

@user = User.where { |user| user.age == params[:age] }

In the above case, RQuery doesn't provide much of an improvement over the traditional find method, but as the query becomes more complex its expressiveness begins to shine through:

@users = User.find(:all, conditions => ["age between ? and ?", 10 , 20])

RQuery:

@users = User.where do |user|
    user.age.between 10..20 
end

Both the from and between methods accept argument lists 10,20 or an array [10,20].

###Other Examples

RQuery supports most of the common SQL operations: =, <>, >, <, >=, <= as well as in, like (see below for specifics), and between. obj.foo.not_<operation> works for .in and .between with the negation of == being obj.foo.not = and the negation of obj.foo.contains as obj.foo.without.

Operators:

@obj = ActiveRecordObject.where do |obj|
    obj.foo > 2      
    obj.foo.not = 4 
end 

#=> conditions array: ["foo > ? and foo <> ?", 2, 4]

Contains:

@obj = ActiveRecordObject.where do |obj|
    obj.foo.contains "bar"
end
#=> conditions array: ["foo like '%' || ? || '%'", "bar"]
#using the default sqlite adapter

In:

@obj = ActiveRecordObject.where do |obj|
    obj.foo.in "bar", "baz", "bak"
end
#=> conditions array: ["foo in (?)", ["bar", "baz", "bak"]]
#using the default sqlite adapter

You can also limit the results returned in a similar manner to the find method by passing a symbol argument to the where method. The default is :all, when no option is specified.

First:

@obj = ActiveRecordObject.where(:first) do |obj|
    obj.foo == "bar"
end

is equivalent to the find call:

@obj = ActiveRecordObject.find(:first, conditions => ["foo = ?", "bar"])

###Complex queries

RQuery supports relatively complex queries including | and & operation groupings. All operations need to be on the same line and in parens and either the | operator or the & operator can be used on a singel line

User.where do |user|
    (user.age > 20) | (user.age.in 16,18)
end

In the following example the & takes precedence and will be grouped with the contains "Alice" which will be or'd with the contains "George"

#=> name contains "George" or (name contains "Alice and age from 20 to 30)
User.where do |user|
    (user.name.contains "George") | (user.name.contains "Alice") & (use.age.from 20..30)
end

To correct the above to the more intuitive version add parens to force precedence of the contains operations

#=> (name contains "George" or name contains "Alice) and age from 20 to 30
User.where do |user|
    ((user.name.contains "George") | (user.name.contains "Alice")) & (use.age.from 20..30)
end

In this sutation it would be cleaner and easier to just move the and'd statement down a line as all seperate lines are and'd and lines have precedence from top to bottom

User.where do |user|
    (user.name.contains "George") | (user.name.contains "Alice")
    use.age.from 20..30
end