# Grep-like search help **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [February 7, 2009, 2:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/grep-like-search-help/159683 "2009-02-07T02:58:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![toltec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ed655f/32.png) [@toltec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/toltec)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 2:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/grep-like-search-help/159683/1 "2009-02-07T02:58:32Z")
Hello, noob here. I have a table called ‘entries’ with lots of sentences, one per row (id). I need to find specific sentences that have the words I’m looking for anywhere in them. For example: > 1. The bird entered the kitchen through the door. > > 2. You left the door of your car open. > > 3. Close the window or the bird will get out of the car. If I search for ‘bird’ and ‘door’, I want only the sentence with the id 1 to come up. If I search for ‘door’ and ‘car’, I want only the sentence with the id 2 to come up. If I search for ‘bird’ and ‘car’, I want only the sentence with the id 3 to come up. So, basically, what this grep command would do: > cat my.file | grep bird | grep door But I’m not getting anywhere with any search technique or plugin I’ve tried so far. Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![toltec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ed655f/32.png) [@toltec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/toltec)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 3:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/grep-like-search-help/159683/2 "2009-02-07T03:23:34Z")
isn’t that just the condition ‘sentence like %bird%door%’? Although that will only get them where they appear in that particular order. You could interate all the possibilities ie conditions =\> [‘sentence like %bird%door% or sentence like %door%bird%’] but that will get messy the more words you have in your search. but there might be something else you can do in SQL. Cheers Simon ---
**Author:** ![toltec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ed655f/32.png) [@toltec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/toltec)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 3:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/grep-like-search-help/159683/3 "2009-02-07T03:55:41Z")
Simon M. wrote: > but that will get messy the more words you have in your > search. Yeah, I was figuring I was gonna have to do something like an ‘explode’ with the search terms at some point. ---
**Author:** ![toltec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ed655f/32.png) [@toltec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/toltec)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 11:21am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/grep-like-search-help/159683/4 "2009-02-07T11:21:24Z")
Would conditions =\> [‘sentence like %bird% and sentence like %door%’] do the job? 2009/2/7 Ralph W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ---
**Author:** ![toltec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ed655f/32.png) [@toltec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/toltec)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/grep-like-search-help/159683/5 "2009-02-07T16:44:28Z")
On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 5:58 PM, Ralph W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I have a table called ‘entries’ with lots of sentences, one per row > (id). I need to find specific sentences that have the words I’m looking > for anywhere in them. If you’re using MySQL, you can create a FULLTEXT index on the field(s) in question and use MATCH: [http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/fulltext-natural-language.html](http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/fulltext-natural-language.html) Other RDBMSs may have an equivalent. ## HTH, Hassan S. ------------------------ removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid