Method: ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::TableDefinition#column

Defined in:

activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/schema_definitions.rb

#column(name, type, index: nil, **options) ⇒ Object

Instantiates a new column for the table. See connection.add_column for available options.

Additional options are:

• :index - Create an index for the column. Can be either true or an options hash.

This method returns self.

Examples

# Assuming +td+ is an instance of TableDefinition
td.column(:granted, :boolean, index: true)

Short-hand examples

Instead of calling #column directly, you can also work with the short-hand definitions for the default types. They use the type as the method name instead of as a parameter and allow for multiple columns to be defined in a single statement.

What can be written like this with the regular calls to column:

create_table :products do |t|
  t.column :shop_id,     :integer
  t.column :creator_id,  :integer
  t.column :item_number, :string
  t.column :name,        :string, default: "Untitled"
  t.column :value,       :string, default: "Untitled"
  t.column :created_at,  :datetime
  t.column :updated_at,  :datetime
end
add_index :products, :item_number

can also be written as follows using the short-hand:

create_table :products do |t|
  t.integer :shop_id, :creator_id
  t.string  :item_number, index: true
  t.string  :name, :value, default: "Untitled"
  t.timestamps null: false
end

There’s a short-hand method for each of the type values declared at the top. And then there’s TableDefinition#timestamps that’ll add created_at and updated_at as datetimes.

TableDefinition#references will add an appropriately-named _id column, plus a corresponding _type column if the :polymorphic option is supplied. If :polymorphic is a hash of options, these will be used when creating the _type column. The :index option will also create an index, similar to calling add_index. So what can be written like this:

create_table :taggings do |t|
  t.integer :tag_id, :tagger_id, :taggable_id
  t.string  :tagger_type
  t.string  :taggable_type, default: 'Photo'
end
add_index :taggings, :tag_id, name: 'index_taggings_on_tag_id'
add_index :taggings, [:tagger_id, :tagger_type]

Can also be written as follows using references:

create_table :taggings do |t|
  t.references :tag, index: { name: 'index_taggings_on_tag_id' }
  t.references :tagger, polymorphic: true
  t.references :taggable, polymorphic: { default: 'Photo' }, index: false
end

# File 'activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/schema_definitions.rb', line 488

def column(name, type, index: nil, **options)
  name = name.to_s
  type = type.to_sym if type

  raise_on_duplicate_column(name)
  @columns_hash[name] = new_column_definition(name, type, **options)

  if index
    index_options = index.is_a?(Hash) ? index : {}
    index(name, **index_options)
  end

  self
end