hmcfletch / data-attributes Goto Github PK

Get unit tests set up.

Normal serialized columns are written to the database with every time the object is saved. This is because ActiveRecord doesn't know if it was modified in place or not, so it writes it every time. With data-attributes we have control over this column and can figure when it has changed, so we can write it only when changed.

Want to be able to specify a default for the data attributes

data_attributes { :name => { :default => 'Anon' } }

This allows the following:

u = User.new
u.name
=> Anon
u.name = 'hmcfletch'
u.name
=> hmcfletch

A way to group the data attributes together in collections. Example:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base

  serialize :data

  data_attributes { :email_settings => [ :newsletter, :invitations, :friend_requests ] }

end

This would lead to the following accessors:

u = User.new
u.email_settings.newsletter = true
u.email_settings.newsletter
=> true
u.email_settings
=> { :newsletter => true }
u.data
=> { :email_settings => { :newsletter => true } }

http://ar.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Dirty.html

person.changed? # => true
person.name_changed? # => true
person.name_was # => 'uncle bob'
person.name_change # => ['uncle bob', 'Bob']
person.changed # => ['name']
person.changes # => { 'name' => ['Bill', 'bob'] }
person.name_will_change!