== amee-data-persistence

The amee-data-persistence gem provides database support for use in conjunction
with the amee-data-abstraction gem.

Licensed under the BSD 3-Clause license (See LICENSE.txt for details)

Authors: James Hetherington, James Smith, Andrew Berkeley, George Palmer

Copyright: Copyright (c) 2011 AMEE UK Ltd

Homepage: http://github.com/AMEE/amee-data-persistence

Documentation: http://rubydoc.info/gems/amee-data-persistence
== INSTALLATION

gem install amee-data-persistence

== REQUIREMENTS

* ruby 1.8.7
* rubygems >= 1.5

All gem requirements should be installed as part of the rubygems installation process
above, but are listed here for completeness.

* amee-data-abstraction ~> 1.0.0

== USAGE

The library repesents calculations as
database records using two classes (<i>AMEE::Db::Calculation</i> and
<i>AMEE::Db::Term</i>) both of which inherit <i>ActiveRecord::Base</i>.

The library also defines the <i>AMEE::DataAbstraction::PersistenceSupport</i>
module which is mixed into the <i>AMEE::DataAbstraction::OngoingCalculation</i>
class by default when the library is required. The module provides a number of
class and instance methods which provide an interface between the
<i>AMEE::DataAbstraction::OngoingCalculation</i> class (and its instances) and
the database. It is via these methods that the persistence functionality
provided by the <i>AMEE::Db</i> classes is principally used.

The level of data storage can be configured to three distinct levels, representing
the range of calculation terms which are persisted: all; outputs and metadata only;
and metadata only.

The global persistence storage level and migrations for the database tables
(under /db/migrate) can be generated using the command line generator command:

$ rails generate persistence <storage_level>

where <storage_level> can be either 'everything', 'outputs' or 'metadata', e.g.,

$ rails generate persistence everything


=== Example usage

my_calculation = OngoingCalculation.find(:first)

#=> <AMEE::DataAbstraction::OngoingCalculation ... >

my_calculation = OngoingCalculation.find(28)

#=> <AMEE::DataAbstraction::OngoingCalculation ... >

my_calculation = OngoingCalculation.find(:all)

#=> <AMEE::DataAbstraction::CalculationCollection ... >

my_calculation = OngoingCalculation.find_by_type(:all, :electricity)

#=> <AMEE::DataAbstraction::CalculationCollection ... >

my_calculation.id #= 28

my_calculation.db_calculation #=> <AMEE::Db::Calculation ... >

my_calculation.to_hash #=> { :profile_uid => "EYR758EY36WY",
:profile_item_uid => "W83URT48DY3W",
:type => { :value => 'car' },
:distance => { :value => 1600,
:unit => <Quantify::Unit::SI> },
:co2 => { :value => 234.1,
:unit => <Quantify::Unit::NonSI> }}

my_calculation.save #=> true

my_calculation.delete #=> nil

n order to use the persistence library, prototype calculations must be held within
instances of the AMEE::DataAbstraction::CalculationSet class