Very easy to fix, just open up the ‘internals.rb’ file in the UltraSphinx plugin or include the gem using ‘rake gems:unpack GEM=ultrasphinx’ (need to have config.gem “ultrasphinx” set in envrinoment.rb) and then find that file.

Ok, so found the file? On line 97 is this loop:

Array(opts['filters']).each do |field, value|
  ....
 begin
     case value
     when Integer, Float, BigDecimal, NilClass, Array
       # XXX Hack to force floats to be floats
       value = value.to_f if type == 'float'
       # Just bomb the filter in there
       request.filters << Riddle::Client::Filter.new(field, Array(value), false)
     when Range
     ....
end

The ‘Riddle::Client::Filter.new(field, Array(value), false)’ call is the one we need to change (the ‘false’ is the exclude param).

So what I did was to change that loop to:

        Array(opts['filters']).each do |field, value|

          field = field.to_s
          type = Fields.instance.types[field]

          # Special derived attribute
          if field == 'distance' and options['location']
            field, type = '@geodist', 'float'
          end

          raise UsageError, "field #{field.inspect} is invalid" unless type

# ADDED FROM HERE
          exclude = false
          # check for exclude flag
          if value.is_a? Hash
            exclude = value[:exclude]
            value = value[:value]
          end
# TO HERE

          begin
            case value
              when Integer, Float, BigDecimal, NilClass, Array
                # XXX Hack to force floats to be floats
                value = value.to_f if type == 'float'
                # Just bomb the filter in there

# CHANGE CALL HERE TO PASS THE exclude PARAMETER
                request.filters << Riddle::Client::Filter.new(field, Array(value), exclude)
              when Range
                # Make sure ranges point in the right direction
                min, max = [value.begin, value.end].map {|x| x._to_numeric }
                raise NoMethodError unless min <=> max and max <=> min
                min, max = max, min if min > max
                # XXX Hack to force floats to be floats
                min, max = min.to_f, max.to_f if type == 'float'

# CHANGE CALL HERE TO PASS THE exclude PARAMETER
                request.filters << Riddle::Client::Filter.new(field, min..max, exclude)
              when String
                # XXX Hack to move text filters into the query
                opts['parsed_query'] << " @#{field} #{value}"
              else
                raise NoMethodError
            end
          rescue NoMethodError => e
            raise UsageError, "Filter value #{value.inspect} for field #{field.inspect} is invalid"
          end
        end

Now I can do searches like

    @search = Ultrasphinx::Search.new(
      :query => params[:q],
      :page => page,
      :class_names => ["User"],
      :filters => {:id => {:value => current_user.id, :exclude => true}}
    )

And the current_user gets excluded, cool.

Big advantages are the archive of errors and the ability to mark them as dealt with. Of course I could do that with email folders and the like, but I’m lazy and this appears to do it all. Oh and its free!!!

To the creative genius[es] behind TweetLists,

We’d like to congratulate you on being selected as our MASHUP OF THE DAY at MashupAwards.com for July 30, 2008.

So, not all that familiar with The Mashup Awards, but others clearly are as the resulting traffic killed the site (not that that would of been hard)! I would like to say thank you to them for the award and also take this opportunity to thank my manager, parents, producer, jesus, god, twitter!, Tim Berners Lee, Matz……..

Right then off to ‘enjoy basking in the glow of my well deserved recognition’ as suggested by ‘The Mashup Awards Judging Panel’

params =~ /.*: Parameters: (\{.*\})$/
str_hash = JSON.parse(params.gsub('=>',':'))

This provides a hash of the parameters used in the request. Of course the keys here are strings so to convert to symbols we can then use:

def create_symbol_hash(input)
  ret = input
  if input.is_a? Hash
    ret = {}
    input.each do |k, v|
      ret[k.to_sym] = create_symbol_hash(v)
    end
    ret
  else
    ret
  end
end

and simply pass in the output from the JSON library. Seemed quite neat to me anyway.

On the up side I can highly recommend Enterprise (and taking out the full coverage), they were very helpful and polite. Even offered me a new car – which would of seemed like a better idea if I could move properly!! At least no one was badly hurt.

1) Yahoo Resigner (by Mat Honan)

2) Instant Rim Shot (by Scott Carver)