Delta

Calculates the delta between two collections of objects.

Usage

In its simplest form, Delta calculates the additions and deletions for arbitrary collections of objects:

delta = Delta.new(
  from: [pikachu, pidgey, magikarp],
  to: [raichu, pidgey, butterfree]
)

delta.additions
#=> #<Enumerator: ... >

delta.additions.to_a
#=> [
  #<Pokemon @species="Raichu", @name="Zappy", @type="Electric">,
  #<Pokemon @species="Butterfree", @name="Flappy", @type="Flying">
]

delta.deletions.to_a
#=> [
  #<Pokemon @species="Pikachu", @name="Zappy", @type="Electric">,
  #<Pokemon @species="Magikarp", @name="Splashy", @type="Water">
]

Identifiers

By default, Delta uses object_id to compare the collections. You can tell Delta to use something else by setting the identifiers parameter:

delta = Delta.new(
  from: [pikachu, pidgey, magikarp],
  to: [raichu, pidgey, butterfree],
  identifiers: [:name]
)

delta.additions.to_a
#=> [#<Pokemon @species="Butterfree", @name="Flappy", @type="Flying">]

delta.deletions.to_a
#=> [#<Pokemon @species="Magikarp", @name="Splashy", @type="Water">]

In this case, 'Raichu' and 'Pikachu' don't appear in the additions or deletions because they share the same name and Delta thinks that they are the same object.

Modifications

In most cases, it is more appropriate to think in terms of modifications rather than additions and deletions.

To calculate modifications, Delta needs to know which things might change on the objects. You can tell Delta which things are subject to change by setting the changes parameter:

delta = Delta.new(
  from: [pikachu, pidgey, magikarp],
  to: [raichu, pidgey, butterfree],
  identifiers: [:name],
  changes: [:species]
)

delta.additions.to_a
#=> [#<Pokemon @species="Butterfree", @name="Flappy", @type="Flying">]

delta.modifications.to_a
#=> [#<Pokemon @species="Raichu", @name="Zappy", @type="Electric">]

delta.deletions.to_a
#=> [#<Pokemon @species="Magikarp", @name="Splashy", @type="Water">]

In the above example, 'Zappy' appears as a modification because Delta thinks that 'Pikachu' and 'Raichu' are the same object because they share the same name.

Composite Keys

In some cases, objects will be uniquely identified by a combination of things. For example, consider an application that enforces the uniqueness of names, but only in the context of a 'type'.

In these cases, you can specify multiple identifiers:

delta = Delta.new(
  from: [pikachu, pidgey, magikarp],
  to: [raichu, pidgey, butterfree],
  identifiers: [:name, :type]
  changes: [:species]
)

delta.additions.to_a
#=> [#<Pokemon @species="Butterfree", @name="FANG!", @type="Flying">]

delta.modifications.to_a
#=> [#<Pokemon @species="Raichu", @name="Zappy", @type="Electric">]

delta.deletions.to_a
#=> [#<Pokemon @species="Magikarp", @name="FANG!", @type="Water">]

If 'name' were the only identifier, Delta would think that 'Butterfree' and 'Magikarp' are the same object and they would not appear in additions or deletions.

Many to One

It is possible to build deltas that aren't necessarily related to a single object, but instead, span multiple objects within the collections.

This may be useful if there are objects in your collection that share some property. In this example, all of the Pokemon have a 'type'. We can build a Delta that shows the difference in types between collections, like so:

delta = Delta.new(
  from: [pikachu, pidgey, magikarp],
  to: [raichu, pidgey, butterfree],
  identifiers: [:type]
)

delta.additions.to_a
#=> []

delta.modifications.to_a
#=> []

delta.deletions.to_a
#=> [#<Pokemon @species="Magikarp", @name="Splashy", @type="Water">]

In this example, both 'Electric' and 'Flying' types appear in both collections. The only difference is the deletion of all 'Water' type Pokemon. Note that Delta will only return the first object that matches the deleted type.

Rails Support

Delta has added support for Rails applications. If the collections are of class ActiveRecord::Relation, Delta will try to improve performance by reducing the number of select queries on the database. This may not work with old versions of Rails.

In the Wild

So far, we've talked a lot about Pokemon, but how is this useful in the real-world?

Consider an application that is backed by an external content management system. You have some kind of extract-transform-load process that takes content from the CMS and pushes it into your database. Your application is serving live traffic and needs to remain available at all times.

To minimise the amount of churn on your database, it makes sense to calculate just the things that have changed, rather than rebuilding the entire set of content each time. To do this, you could push the CMS content into a staging database where you calculate a Delta without touching your live application.

Once this Delta is calculated, you can then stream the minimal set of changes to the database that backs your application.

Contribution

Thanks for the using this gem. If you think of a great new feature or you find a problem, please open an issue or a pull request and I'll try to get back to you.