ActiveCabinet

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An ActiveRecord-inspired interface for HashCabinet, the file-based key-object store.

It allows you to create models that are stored in a file-based key-value store, backed by Ruby's built in SDBM.

ActiveCabinet is a tiny library, with only HashCabinet as a dependency.

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Installation

$ gem install active_cabinet

Usage

Before trying these examples, create a directory named db - this is the default directory where the cabinet files are stored.

require 'active_cabinet'

# Define a model
class Song < ActiveCabinet
end

# Create the model, and store it in the cabinet
# Each object must have at least an `id` and can have any number of
# attributes
song = Song.create id: 1, title: 'Moonchild', artist: 'Iron Maiden'
p song
#=> #<Song @attributes={:id=>1, :title=>"Moonchild", :artist=>"Iron Maiden"}>

# Get all records
Song.all     #=> Array of Song objects
Song.count   #=> 1

# Retrieve a specific record
Song[1]
Song.find 1

# Read one attribute or all attributes from a record
song.album
song.attributes

# Update a single attribute
song.year = 1988
song.save

# Update multiple attributes
song.update year: 1988, artist: 'Metallica'
song.update! year: 1988, artist: 'Metallica'  # this variant also saves

Restricting / allowing certain attributes

You may specify required attributes. Records without these attributes will not be saved. Note that id is always required.

class Song < ActiveCabinet
  required_attributes :title, :artist
end

song = Song.new title: "Moonchild"
song.valid?   # => false
song.error    # => "missing required attributes: [:artist, :id]"

song = Song.new id: 1, title: "Moonchild", artist: 'Iron Maiden'
song.valid?   # => true

# Additional attributes are still allowed
song.year = 1988
song.valid?   # => true

You can also restrict the allowed optional attributes

class Song < ActiveCabinet
  required_attributes :title
  optional_attributes :artist
end

song = Song.new id: 1, title: 'Moonchild', album: 'Seventh Son of a Seventh Son'
song.valid?  # => false
song.error   # => "invalid attributes: [:album]"

In order to enforce only the required attributes, without optional ones, set the value of optional_attributes to false

class Song < ActiveCabinet
  required_attributes :title
  optional_attributes false
end

song = Song.new id: 1, title: 'Moonchild', artist: 'Iron Maiden'
song.valid?  # => false
song.error   # => "invalid attributes: [:artist]"

Declaring default attribute values

You may specify default values for some attributes. These attrributes will be merged into newly created record instances.

class Song < ActiveCabinet
  required_attributes :title
  default_attributes format: :mp3
end

song = Song.new title: "Moonchild"
song.format   # => :mp3

Configuring storage path

By default, ActiveCabinet stores all its files (two files per model) in the ./db directory. The file name is determined by the name of the class.

You can override both of these values:

# Set the base directory for all cabinets
ActiveCabinet::Config.dir = "cabinets"

# Set the filename of your model
class Song < ActiveCabinet
  cabinet_name "songs_collection"
end

Documentation

Documentation on RubyDoc

Contributing / Support

If you experience any issue, have a question or a suggestion, or if you wish to contribute, feel free to open an issue.

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