Dynabix

An ActiveRecord 3.x Ruby gem for attribute serialization.

"Dy-na-bix, tasty serialization attribute accessors for ActiveRecord"

Overview

Dynabix dynamically creates read/write accessors on ActiveRecord models for storing attributes in a serialized Hash. Read more in our introductory blog article.

ActiveRecord's native 'store' method

ActiveRecord as of 3.2.1, has a very similar native method store. Dynabix differs from store by providing a declarative DSL for defining multiple stores (Ruby 1.9+), has separate read/write accessors, and stores to the database as HashWithIndifferentAccess. Unless you need one of these specific features, using the native 'store' method is recommended.

Installation

Add to your Gemfile

gem "dynabix"

Install the gem

bundle install

Development

Get the source

cd workspace

git clone https://github.com/robertwahler/dynabix.git

cd dynabix

Install the dependencies

bundle install

Run the specs

bundle exec rake spec

Autotest with Guard

bundle exec guard

Usage Examples

Ruby 1.8

Add a text column "metadata" to your model migration

class AddMetadataToThings < ActiveRecord::Migration

  def change
    add_column :things, :metadata, :text
  end

end

Add accessors to your model using the default column name ":metadata", specify the attributes in a separate step.

class Thing < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_metadata

  # full accessors
  metadata_accessor :breakfast_food, :wheat_products, :needs_milk

  # read-only
  metadata_reader :friends_with_spoons
end

Specifying attributes for full attribute accessors in one step

class Thing < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_metadata :metadata, :breakfast_food, :wheat_products, :needs_milk
end

Using the new accessors

thing = Thing.new

thing.breakfast_food = 'a wheat like cereal"

# same thing, but using the hash directly
thing.metadata[:breakfast_food] = 'a wheat like cereal"

Ruby 1.9+

Dynabix under Ruby 1.9+ enables specifying multiple metadata columns on a model.

Add text columns "cows" and "chickens" to your model migration

class AddMetadataToThings < ActiveRecord::Migration

  def change
    add_column :things, :cows, :text
    add_column :things, :chickens, :text
  end

end

Specifying multiple metadata serializers (Ruby 1.9 only)

class Thing < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_metadata :cows
  has_metadata :chickens, :tasty, :feather_count

  # read-only
  cows_reader :likes_milk, :hates_eggs

  # write-only
  cows_writer :no_wheat_products

  # extra full accessors for chickens
  chickens_accessor :color, :likes_eggs
end

Runtime dependencies

Activerecord 3.x

Development dependencies

Bundler for dependency management http://github.com/carlhuda/bundler
Rspec for unit testing http://github.com/rspec/rspec
Yard for documentation generation http://github.com/lsegal/yard

Rake tasks

bundle exec rake -T

rake build             # Build dynabix-0.0.2.gem into the pkg directory
rake doc:clean         # Remove generated documenation
rake doc:generate      # Generate YARD Documentation
rake doc:undocumented  # List undocumented objects
rake gemfiles          # Generate .gemfiles via 'git ls-files'
rake install           # Build and install dynabix-0.0.2.gem into system gems
rake release           # Create tag v0.0.2 and build and push dynabix-0.0.2.gem to Rubygems
rake spec              # Run RSpec