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In this video, we implement a method to search for contacts by their name.
Code Samples
Here is our find_by_name method:
def find_by_name(name)
results = []
search = name.downcase
contacts.each do |contact|
if contact.full_name.downcase.include?(search)
results.push(contact)
end
end
puts "Name search results (#{search})"
results.each do |contact|
puts contact.to_s('full_name')
contact.print_phone_numbers
contact.print_addresses
puts "\n"
end
end
Which we can call as follows:
address_book.find_by_name("e")
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[MUSIC]
0:00
We have all of our contacts successfully
in the program but just printing out
0:04
a list doesn't do us much good if we
don't have the ability to search through.
0:08
We're going to use some methods that take
blocks to search through our different
0:13
contacts.
0:17
Let's go ahead and try adding that
ability now using work spaces.
0:18
All right.
0:23
So, first up let's go ahead and
add the ability to find a contact by name.
0:24
We can print out the contact list.
0:30
But, we want to be able
to search through it.
0:32
So let's go ahead and write a method.
0:37
Called find_by_name.
0:40
And we'll pass in a name.
0:45
Now, let's think about
how we're gonna do this.
0:49
What we can do is iterate over
each contact in the contact list.
0:52
And then, if the name matches the argument
to this method we'll go ahead and
0:58
return that contact.
1:03
So how are we gonna do that?
1:05
Well, we can start by
having an empty array
1:07
of search results which will be
the contacts in our contacts list.
1:11
And then we'll say the search is
the name which we send into the method.
1:19
Same thing here and here.
1:26
But now let's think about this for
just a moment.
1:29
If somebody's searching for part of
a name or they've capitalized the name,
1:32
we still want the search to
return the correct thing.
1:37
So what we’re going to do is
make the search query lowercase.
1:40
And then when we’re looking through the
different contacts we’ll also match that
1:46
against the lowercase version of
the first, middle or last name.
1:51
So let's go ahead and
iterate through the contacts.
1:56
And then if it matches, we'll append
that contact to the results array.
2:00
So, here's a loop, and now we'll say,
2:11
contact.first_name, and
remember, we'll downcase this.
2:15
So now we're dealing with a lower
case version of the first name, and
2:20
strings have a method called include,
2:24
which lets you see if a string
includes another string.
2:26
So we can say if this includes our search,
2:32
we can append this contact
to the result array.
2:38
Now, what we can do is go through and
print out the results.
2:44
And then, just to be a little bit more
clear, we'll put in the search term.
2:52
Now we can iterate over the results.
2:59
Remember, this is going to be a contact.
3:04
Now we can print out the contact's name.
3:09
We'll print out their full name.
3:11
And we'll go ahead and
print their phone numbers, and
3:19
we'll go ahead and print the addresses,
and we'll also print a new line.
3:24
So now let's go down here, and
3:31
instead of printing out the contact list,
we can comment that out.
3:33
And let's first try searching for
Nick in all lower case and
3:43
when we run this we should hopefully see
Nick's contact information printed out.
3:47
Oh, undefined local variable or
method, seach.
3:56
That would appear to be a typo.
4:00
Here we go.
4:06
That's on line 18, that all looks good.
4:08
Let's run this again.
4:13
Okay, this looks good,
that's what we wanted.
4:16
Now, let's go ahead and
change this to an n, since both Nick and
4:22
I have that letter in our names.
4:26
And then we should hopefully see Jason and
Nick here.
4:29
And we do.
That looks good.
4:33
Let's go ahead and
change this to search for the letter e.
4:39
And that returned no search results.
4:47
Even though both of our last
names include the letter e.
4:51
So let's go ahead and add an or statement.
5:00
And we'll say if contact.last_name.
5:03
Includes the search,
we can push that to the search results.
5:11
Let's go ahead and run this again.
5:21
And, hey, we get the exact same
results that we were expecting.
5:23
And actually we could include the full
name here, instead of searching for
5:30
the first and last names, we can get
the middle name in there, as well.
5:36
Run that one more time.
5:42
All right,
now we have a name search working.
5:43
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