How to specify multiple values in where with AR query interface in rails3

Question

Per section 2.2 of rails guide on Active Record query interface here:

which seems to indicate that I can pass a string specifying the condition(s), then an array of

Answer 1

Instead of passing the same parameter multiple times to where() like this

User.where(
  "first_name like ? or last_name like ? or city like ?", 
  "%#{search}%", "%#{search}%", "%#{search}%"
)

you can easily provide a hash

User.where(
  "first_name like :search or last_name like :search or city like :search",
  {search: "%#{search}%"}
)

that makes your query much more readable for long argument lists.