james2m/external_databases

External Databases
==================

Makes connecting to a second database easy. You just set the names in database.yml and put the models for the 
external database inside a namespace. External Databases will create an abstract base class inside the namespace
and create a connection the database for the models that inherit from it.

Getting Started
---------------

1. Stick External Databases into vendor/plugins.

2. Update database.yml

Entries use the same convention as regular database definitions but have a prefix of external_ thus;

   login: &login
     adapter: mysql
     encoding: utf8
     username: username
     password: passwd
     host: localhost
   development:
     database: foo_development
     <<: *login
   test:
     database: foo_test
     <<: *login
   production:
     database: foo_production
     <<: *login
   external_production_bar:
     database: bar_production
     <<: *login
   external_development_bar:
     database: bar_development
     <<: *login  
   
3. Put you models into a namespace and inherit from that

For the database.yml above the namespace would be Bar and the base controller would be Bar::Base.
So the widgets table in bar would be

   class Bar::Widget < Bar::Base
   
     has_many :things
     
   end

   class Thing < ActiveRecord::Base
   
     belongs_to :widget, :class_name => 'Bar::Widget'
   
   end
   
Copyright (c) 2008 [James McCarthy], released under the MIT license