activerecord - How to do a LIKE query in Arel and Rails?

Question

I want to do something like:

SELECT * FROM USER WHERE NAME LIKE '%Smith%';

My attempt in Arel:

# params[:query] = 'Smith'
User.where("name like '%?%'", params[:query]).to_sql

However, this becomes:

SELECT * FROM USER WHERE NAME LIKE '%'Smith'%';

Arel wraps the query string 'Smith' correctly, but because this is a LIKE statement it doesnt work.

How does one do a LIKE query in Arel?

P.S. Bonus--I am actually trying to scan two fields on the table, both name and description, to see if there are any matches to the query. How would that work?

Answer 1

This is how you perform a like query in arel:

users = User.arel_table
User.where(users[:name].matches("%#{user_name}%"))

PS:

users = User.arel_table
query_string = "%#{params[query]}%"
param_matches_string =  ->(param){ 
  users[param].matches(query_string) 
} 
User.where(param_matches_string.(:name)
                       .or(param_matches_string.(:description)))