# Plugin for finding duplicates

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/plugin-for-finding-duplicates/181498>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [January 12, 2010, 8:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/plugin-for-finding-duplicates/181498 "2010-01-12T20:41:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![tomtt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e47c2d/32.png) [@tomtt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tomtt)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 8:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/plugin-for-finding-duplicates/181498/1 "2010-01-12T20:41:04Z")

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hi

is there a plugin or something else which could assist in finding  
duplicates in a model / table?

even with validations, users tend to enter data twice / wrong (for  
whatever reasons…)…so i was wondering if there is something out  
there to find these entries, preferably across multiple columns  
thx  
tom

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**Author:** ![tomtt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e47c2d/32.png) [@tomtt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tomtt)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 5:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/plugin-for-finding-duplicates/181498/2 "2010-01-13T17:45:24Z")

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On Jan 12, 2:39Â pm, tom [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> hi
> 
> is there a plugin or something else which could assist in finding  
> duplicates in a model / table?
> 
> even with validations, users tend to enter data twice / wrong  (for  
> whatever reasons…)…so i was wondering if there is something out  
> there to find these entries, preferably  across multiple columns

Never heard of a plugin to do this, but one thing that can help is  
adding :disable\_with to submit buttons - you’d be amazed how many  
users double-click (or more) buttons. You’ll notice this if you’re  
using timestamps and you see a stack of identical records created \<1s  
apart.

–Matt J.