Access a query in Ruby on Rails - sql

Question

I have in my controller this:
#itemsok = Search.where("first_item_id = ?", params["3"])
This is sopposed to be a query in the search table of the database asking for all the searches that have a first_item_id = 3 ...
Question 1 .- The syntax is I found it in http://guides.rubyonrails.org/active_record_querying.html but im not sure if im using it right?
Ok the question 2 is, I have this on the controller, is it ok to have querys in the controller?
In the view im printing the variable <%= #itemsok %> and all I get is a
ActiveRecord::Relation:0x007fd3d3e894d8
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

ActiveRecord 3 lets you chain relations together so you can do something like this:
#itemsok = Search.where("first_item_id = ?", params["3"]).where("foo = ?", "bar")
The where() function returns an ActiveRecord::Relation. Generally this isn't a problem, since if you use the object it'll automatically run the query and return the results on the object so you'll get the database objects. AR doesn't run the query until it's actually needed.
Where will return a list of items (Array), so if you're just debugging, change your view to this:
<%= debug #itemsok.to_a %>

Answer 2

You seem to be constructing the query wrong way.
If you want to search for records with first_item_id = 3, you should do:
Search.where("first_item_id = ?", 3)
This will return an array of matching records, something you can't easily print with <%= #itemsok %>. You should iterate over the elements and print each one:
<% #itemsok.each do |item| %>
<%= item.name %>
<% end %>
I'd also suggest defining to_s method for the objects you want to print.
class Search
def to_s
name
end
end
Then you can simply print the object and to_s method will be automatically called for you:
<% #itemsok.each do |item| %>
<%= item %>
<% end %>

Answer 3

The right way to do is to define a namedscope in the model and then use it in the controller.
Something similar to this :
class Search < ActiveRecord::Base
named_scope:item_ok,lambda {|*args|{:conditions=>["item_id >= ?", args.first]}}
end
and then call the namedscope from the controller like this :
#itemsok = Search.item_ok(params[:value])