Estate Gem

Estate is a Ruby gem designed to simplify state management in models, including ActiveRecord, Sequel, as well as plain Ruby objects. The primary focus of this gem is to provide a straightforward way to define states and transitions using a clean syntax.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile and run bundle install:

gem 'estate'

Or install it manually using:

gem install estate

Usage

ActiveRecord

To use the Estate gem with ActiveRecord, include it in your model and define your states and transitions inside a block using the estate method. Here's a simple example:

class MyModel < ApplicationRecord
  include Estate

  estate do
    state :state_1
    state :state_2
    state :state_3

    transition from: :state_1, to: :state_2
    transition from: :state_2, to: :state_3
    transition from: :state_3, to: :state_1
  end
end

And then

model = MyModel.create(state: :state_1)
model.update(state: :state_2) # you don't need to call any extra code to change the state; treat it like a normal field

The default field for storing the state is named "state". You can customize this name by providing options to the estate method:

class MyModel < ApplicationRecord
  include Estate

  estate column: :custom_state_field do
    # ...
  end
end

You can also use the empty_initial_state: true option to enable the creation of a model with a nil initial state:

class MyModel < ApplicationRecord
  include Estate

  estate empty_initial_state: true do
    # ...
  end
end

The estate method now supports a raise_on_error option. When set to true, the gem will raise a specific exception instead of the standard ActiveRecord validation error upon a validation failure.

class MyModel < ApplicationRecord
  include Estate

  estate raise_on_error: true do
    # ...
  end
end

Sequel

To use the Estate gem with Sequel, include it in your model, and ensure you have the plugin: dirty enabled for validation to work correctly. The raise_on_error option is not needed with Sequel, as exceptions are always raised on validation errors.

class MySequelModel < Sequel::Model
  include Estate

  plugin :dirty # Ensure the dirty plugin is enabled for validation to work

  estate do
    state :state_1
    state :state_2
    state :state_3

    transition from: :state_1, to: :state_2
    transition from: :state_2, to: :state_3
    transition from: :state_3, to: :state_1
  end
end

Migration Example for ActiveRecord

bundle exec rails generate migration AddStateToMyModels state:string

This will generate a migration file. Open the migration file and modify it to suit your needs, for example:

class AddStateToMyModels < ActiveRecord::Migration[7.0]
  def change
    add_column :my_models, :state, :string
  end
end

Run the migration:

bundle exec rails db:migrate

License

MIT License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.