find condition issue

Question

min_age = params[:min_age]

max_age = params[:max_age]

@users = User.find(:all, :conditions => [" years >= ? AND years <= ? ", min_age, max_age])

This is the controller method for a search feature. As you can see I wish to search by age range. This works for all max_age values up to 99, but when the max_age exceeds 99 the search returns no results when it should. I don't really expect many people beyond 99 but I am curious why this is happening. The age is a string.

Answer 1

It's because "100" comes before "20" when you compare alphanumerically as strings do. Change age to an integer as it should be, and it will work fine.

Answer 2

Mark Byers has the right answer. So it should be accepted.

But you should know, this is the kind of thing you should be using a named scope for.

In user.rb

named_scope :ages_in_range, lambda {|min, max|
  {:conditions => ["years >= ? AND years <= ?", min, max]}
}

Now in your controller:

@users = User.ages_in_range(min_age,max_age)