<p>Really simple question - how do I do a search to find all records where the name starts with a certain string in ActiveRecord. I've seen all sorts of bits all over the internet where verbatim LIKE SQL clauses are used - but from what I've heard that isn't the 'correct' way of doing it.</p>

<p>Is there a 'proper' Rails way?</p>

If you're looking to do the search in the database then you'll need to use SQL.
And, of course, you'll need to do the search in the database otherwise you need to load
all
the objects into Ruby (which isn't a good thing).
So, you will need something like
```
```
MyModel.find(:all, :conditions => ["field LIKE ?", "#{prefix}%"])
```
```
where
```
prefix
```
is a variable with the string you're looking for.
In Rails 3.0+ this becomes:
```
```
MyModel.where("field LIKE :prefix", prefix: "#{prefix}%")
```
```