Search

Build a search experience for your Rails app.

To create a search experience for your app, you can choose between frontend or backend search.

Frontend search

Use Algolia’s UI libraries, InstantSearch and Autocomplete, for client-side searching. Search requests are made from the browser or app, and results are returned without going through your server. This ensures rapid searching.

For more information, see:

• What is InstantSearch?
• What is Autocomplete?
• Example Rails app with Autocomplete and InstantSearch.js

Backend search

Sometimes, backend search can be more suitable. The search request goes from your server to Algolia.

Algolia sends the response back to your server, where you can process it.

Backend search response

With backend search, you’ll get ORM-compliant Rails model objects.

Ruby

hits = Contact.search("jon doe")
p(hits)

The search method accepts a query and search parameters:

Ruby

# Query and search parameters
p(Contact.search("jon doe", {hitsPerPage: 5, page: 2}))

If you always pass the same parameters, set them as index settings.

Ruby

class Contact < ActiveRecord::Base
  include AlgoliaSearch

  algoliasearch do
    # Default search parameters stored in the index settings
    minWordSizefor1Typo 4
    minWordSizefor2Typos 8
    hitsPerPage 42
  end
end

Every ORM object of the response contains the highlighted text for the search query. This corresponds to the highlight_result attribute in Algolia’s raw response.

Ruby

hits[0].highlight_result["first_name"]["value"]

Raw search response

To access attributes from the Algolia search response, use the raw_answer object:

Ruby

hits = Contact.search("jon doe")
p(hits.raw_answer.nb_hits)
p(hits.raw_answer.nb_pages)

If you don’t need models, you can avoid loading objects from the database by retrieving Algolia’s raw JSON response:

Ruby

json_answer = Contact.raw_search("jon doe")
p(json_answer)
p(json_answer[:hits])
p(json_answer[:facets])

Search in specific indices

To search in specific indices, specify the index with the index key:

Ruby

Book.search("new america", index: "Book_by_editor")
Book.raw_search("new america", index: "Book_by_editor")

To search in a replica index, use the replica key:

Ruby

Book.search("new america", replica: "Book_by_editor")
Book.raw_search("new america", replica: "Book_by_editor")

Backend pagination

To add pagination server-side, use one of the following pagination backends:

• will_paginate
• kaminari
• pagy

To use :will_paginatem :kamari or :pagy, pass one of them as :pagination_backend option to your global configuration:

Ruby

AlgoliaSearch.configuration = {
  application_id: "ALGOLIA_APPLICATION_ID",
  api_key: "ALGOLIA_API_KEY",
  pagination_backend: :will_paginate
}

In your controller:

Ruby

@results = MyModel.search("america", hitsPerPage: 10)
# when using Pagy
pagy, @results = MyModel.search("america", hitsPerPage: 10)

In your views:

ERB

# If using will_paginate
<%%= will_paginate @results %>

# If using kaminari
<%%= paginate @results %>

Facets

To retrieve facets, you must first configure them. To retrieve them, use the facets method.

Ruby

hits = Contact.search("jon doe", {facets: "*"})
# ORM-compliant array of objects
p(hits)
# Extra method added to retrieve facets
p(hits.facets)
# Facet values+count of facet 'company'
p(hits.facets[:company])
# Facet values+count of facet 'zip_code'
p(hits.facets[:zip_code])

Or perform a raw search and access the JSON response attributes:

Ruby

raw_json = Contact.raw_search("jon doe", {facets: "*"})
p(raw_json[:facets])

Search for facet values

If you have more facet values than what can fit in your UI, it can be helpful to let users search for them.

If you want to support searching for facet values, configure the facet as searchable.

Ruby

# Array of {value, highlighted, count}
Product.search_for_facet_values("category", "Headphones")

This method accepts search parameters, such as filters.

Ruby

# Only sends back the categories containing red Apple products (and only counts those)
Product.search_for_facet_values(
  "category",
  "phone",
  {
    query: "red",
    filters: "brand:Apple"
    # Array of phone categories linked to red Apple products
  }
)