scharfie / custom_fields

Simple custom fields for Active Record, stored in separate table, serialized in JSON

CustomFields

A simple way of adding those "one-off" attributes/properties to any ActiveRecord model. The custom fields are stored in a separate table (custom_field_store) and serialized to a single column (custom_fields) so only one row needs to be loaded from the database.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'custom_fields', :github => "scharfie/custom_fields"

And then execute:

$ bundle

Finally, run the generator (which will create a new migration):

$ bin/rails generate custom_fields:install
$ rake db:migrate

Usage

In your models, simply include the module and then define the custom fields you want:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  include CustomFields

  custom_field :hometown
  custom_field :gender
  
  # If you are using Rails < 4 or `protected_attributes` gem, you may need to 
  # make your custom fields accessible:
  # attr_accessible :hometown, :gender
end

When you include CustomFields, an association named custom_field_store (owner from the perspective of CustomFieldStore model) is added with has_one relationship . Then, each call to custom_field defines getter and setter methods which communication with the custom_field_store.

Also, you do not need to worry about manually instantiating the custom_field_store, as one will be built automatically if needed.

You can get a list of all defined custom fields with ClassName.custom_fields e.g. User.custom_fields.

Ideas

Possible ideas for future:

• provide default values for custom fields?

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Contributing

1. Fork it ( https://github.com/scharfie/custom_fields/fork )
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create a new Pull Request