pragmaticed / active_touch

A more robust touch for ActiveRecord associations

ActiveTouch

A more robust touch for ActiveRecord associations.

• Touch specific associations when specific attributes change
• Call an optional method on those touched records
• Perform the touch synchronously or asynchronously

Installation

Add the gem to your Gemfile:

gem 'active_touch', '~> 4.0'

Then run the installer:

rails g active_touch:install

Usage

Basic touch that runs after_commit. This will update the association's updated_at.

class Model < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :relations

  touch :relations
end

NOTE: It doesn't matter what type of association is given. The association can even reference an instance method that returns an ActiveRecord collection or record.

Attribute specific touches

To only call the touch when specific attributes are changed, supply an array of attributes with :watch. The following example will only touch :relations when :name or :code changes.

class Model < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :relations

  touch :relations, watch: [:name, :code]
end

After Touch Callback

To call a method on the touched records, use :after_touch. The following example will call :do_something on the associated records after a tocuh.

class Model < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :relations

  touch :relations, after_touch: :do_something
end

NOTE: The after_touch method must be an instance method defined on the associated Class.

Asynchronous touch

The touch can also be queued and run in the background using ActiveJob by setting the :async flag. The following example will run a touch in the background.

class Model < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :relations

  touch :relations, async: true
end

NOTE: The default is async: false

Options

There are a few options that you can change by updating config/initializers/active_touch.rb.

• async: Default to asynchronous touches
• ignored_attributes: When no watch argument is supplied, all attribute changes can trigger a touch. Define a default list of ignored attributes here. Default is [:updated_a]t.
• queue: Specify which queue to put asynchronous jobs in.
• timestamp_attribute: The timestamp attribute that is updated by a touch, default is :updated_at. You can set this to nil if you don't want to update any timestamp.