Case-insensitive find_or_create_by_whatever

Question

I want to be able to do Artist.case_insensitive_find_or_create_by_name(artist_name)[1] (and have it work on both sqlite and postgreSQL)

What\'s the best

Answer 1

This answer is for the additional questions asked in the question comments.

You wont be able to call the default find_or_create_by_name if you override that method. But you can implement your own as shown below:

def self.find_or_create_by_name(*args)
  options = args.extract_options!
  options[:name] = args[0] if args[0].is_a?(String)
  case_sensitive = options.delete(:case_sensitive)
  conditions = case_sensitive ? ['name = ?', options[:name]] : 
                                ['UPPER(name) = ?', options[:name].upcase] 
  first(:conditions => conditions) || create(options)
end

Now you can call the overridden method as follows:

User.find_or_create_by_name("jack")
User.find_or_create_by_name("jack", :case_sensitive => true)
User.find_or_create_by_name("jack", :city=> "XXX", :zip => "1234")
User.find_or_create_by_name("jack", :zip => "1234", :case_sensitive => true)