Finding records that overlap a range in Rails

Question

So, I have an Event model that has a starts_at and a ends_at column and I want to find events that take place in a range of dates.

Answer 1

I guess an event overlaps if it begins before the range ends and ends after the range begins. :)

So:

{:conditions => ['? < ends_at AND ? > starts_at', range.first, range.last]}

Answer 2

There are four cases:

     Start    End
1.      |-----|
2.  |------|
3.  |-------------|
4.         |------|

Your named_scope only gets cases 1,2 and 4. So you just need need to add:

named_scope :in_range, lambda { |range|
  {:conditions => [
     '(starts_at BETWEEN ? AND ? OR ends_at BETWEEN ? AND ?) OR (starts_at <= ? AND ends_at >= ?)',
     range.first, range.last, range.first, range.last, range.first, range.last
   ]}
}