How to properly add brackets to SQL queries with 'or' and 'and' clauses by using Arel?

Question

I am using Ruby on Rails 3.2.2 and I would like to generate the following SQL query:

SELECT `articles`.* FROM `articles` WHERE (`articles`.`user_id` = 1 OR `         


        

Answer 1

I've successfully used this gem: squeel which comes on top of Arel so you don't have to mess with it. So in order to generate your query you would do something like this in Squeel:

@articles = Article.
  where{
  ( user_id.eq(1) | status.eq('published') ) |
  ( user_id.in([10, 11, 12, '<...>']) & status.eq('temp') )
}

# since this is an ActiveRecord::Relation we can play around with it
@articles = @articles.select{ [ user_id, status ] }

# and you can also inspect your SQL to see what is going to come out
puts @articles.to_sql

The more complicated your queries get the more you're going to like this gem.