by_* (byStar) is a plugin that allows you to find ActiveRecord objects given certain date objects. This was originally crafted for only finding objects within a given month, but now has extended out to much more. It now supports finding objects for:

• A given year
• A given month
• A given fortnight
• A given week
• A given day
• Between certain times
• As of a certain time
• Up to a certain time

It also allows you to do nested finds on the records returned which I personally think is the coolest feature of the whole plugin:

Post.by_month(1) do
  { :include => "tags", :conditions => ["tags.name = ?", 'ruby'] }
end

If you're not using the standard created_at field: don't worry! I've covered that scenario too.

If you know the number of the month you want:

Post.by_month(1)

This will return all posts in the first month (January) of the current year.

If you like being verbose:

Post.by_month("January")

This will return all posts created in January of the current year.

If you want to find all posts in January of last year just do

Post.by_month(1, :year => 2007)

or

Post.by_month("January", :year => 2007)

This will perform a find using the column you've specified.

If you have a Time object you can use it to find the posts:

 Post.by_month(Time.local(2008, 11, 24))

This will find all the posts in November 2008.

To find records based on a year you can pass it a two or four digit number:

Post.by_year(09)

This will return all posts in 2009, whereas:

Post.by_year(99)

will return all the posts in the year 1999.

To find records based on a fortnight, you can pass in a number (representing the fortnight number) or a time object:

Post.by_fortnight(18)

This will return all posts in the 18th fortnight of the current year.

Post.by_fortnight(18, :year => 2008)

This will return all posts in the 18th fortnight week of 2008.

Post.by_fortnight(Time.local(2008,1,1))

This will return all posts from the first fortnight of 2008.

To find records based on a week, you can pass in a number (representing the week number) or a time object:

Post.by_week(36)

This will return all posts in the 36th week of the current year.

Post.by_week(36, :year => 2008)

This will return all posts in the 36th week of 2008.

Post.by_week(Time.local(2008,1,1))

This will return all posts from the first week of 2008.

To find records for today:

Post.by_day
Post.today

To find records for a certain day:

Post.by_day(Time.local(2008, 1, 1))

This will return all posts for the given day.

To find records between two times:

Post.between(time1, time2)

To find records as of a certain date up until the current time:

Post.as_of_2_weeks_ago

This uses the Chronic "human mind reading" (read: it's really good at determining what time you mean using written English) library to work it out.

To find records up to a certain time from the current time:

Post.up_to_6_weeks_from_now

If your database uses something other than created_at for storing a timestamp, you can specify the field option like this:

Post.by_month("January", :field => :something_else)

All by_* methods support this extra option.

All the by_* methods takes a block which will then scope the find based on the options passed into it. The supported options are the same options that are supported by ActiveRecord::Base.find:

 Post.by_month(1) do
   { :include => "tags", :conditions => ["tags.name = ?", 'ruby'] }
 end

Unfortunately I forget who exactly prompted me to write the plugin, but I would like to thank #rubyonrails for their support and the following people:

• August Lilleas (leethal)
• gte351s
• Thomase Sinclair (anathematic)
• The dude(s) who created Chronic

If you have suggestions, please contact me at [email protected]