Google Custom Search

This project is a Ruby API to Google’s Custom Search Engine (www.google.com/cse). This plugin is rewrite plugin from Alex Reisner (github.com/alexreisner/google_custom_search.git), because the old plugin not working.

1. Install

Install either as a Rails plugin:

rails plugin install git://github.com/vodafon/google_cse.git

or as a gem:

# add to Gemfile:
gem "google_cse"

# at command prompt:
bundle install

or as a standalone gem (outside of Rails):

sudo gem install google_cse

2. Configure

You must define a constant in your application called CX_GOOGLE_CSE. For example, if you’re using Rails, create a file config/initializers/google_cse.rb:

CX_GOOGLE_CSE = "..."

You can find the CX value for your custom search engine via the search control panel on Google’s site (click the “Get code” link and you’ll see a hidden “cx” field in the sample HTML form).

3. Use

To perform a search:

results = GoogleCustomSearch.search("Hank Aaron", 0)

The second parameter is a start parameter for search query. 0 - first page (1-10 result), 10 - second page, etc.

The results variable is now a GoogleCustomSearch::ResultSet object:

results.pages            # array of pages data
results.results          # array of result objects

Iterate through the results:

results.results.each do |result|
  result.title           # result title
  result.url             # result URL
  result.description     # excerpt, with terms highlighted
end