Storing some application settings in Rails app - ruby-on-rails

There is the following task: My app has got one variable with name 'delivery_time'; this variable can be changed through admin panel. I think it's not a good way to store it in some database table. How can I store it in configs or anything else? May be I should store it in db yet?

You can easily store settings in the config file like this:
Create config.yml and store your settings
delivery_time: '...'
Add this config to initializers/load_config.rb
require 'ostruct'
require 'yaml'
app_config = YAML.load_file(File.join(::Rails.root, 'config', 'config.yml'))[Rails.env]
::AppConfig = OpenStruct.new app_config
And you can call it AppConfig.delivery_time anywhere in the project

Basically for static settings we use following gem
https://github.com/railsjedi/rails_config
so this gem will generate following file
config/settings.yml
you can define your variable(my_config) in this yml file. and use it throughout your application as follows:
Settings.my_config
Or you can use any similar gems

you can use PStore that implements a file based persistence mechanism based on a Hash.
OR
yaml based approach

Related

Rails application global definitions

Hi I want to have some global variables
for example for the slack-notifier I wan to initilize It once and reusing it.
what are the best practices for something like that?
Use $ sign to your variable and it become global. Like below :
$slack-notifier
Also it should initialize in config/initializers folder. For this You can create in any file under config/intializers like config/intializers/xyz.rb
If you don't want to change this throughout application. Then you can create a constant also.
As a convention you should create this constant in intializers folder.
config/intializers/initialize.rb
And contant inside it should be a capital word.
# config/intializers/initialize.rb
ANY_CONSTANT = 'xyz'
You can use this ANY_CONSTANT any where in app.
In /config/initializers/global.rb
$slack-notifier
Starting from Ruby on Rails 4.2 you have config/secrets.yml file, where you can store your settings.
You specify them like this:
your_app: &your_app
app_id: 123
and get the values as follows:
Rails.application.secrets[:your_app]['app_id']
Another option is to have env variables. Take a look into this gem.
With dotenv you create a file called .env in the app's root directory and store your global settings there as follows:
APP_ID=123
To get it within app you would do
ENV['APP_ID']
Add this file to .gitignore. This is the most safe way to store app settings.

How can I load multiple YAML files in rails application.rb

I have many yaml files in config/ And I want to load all yaml files.
EX: I have two .yml files name is: application.yml and linkedin.yml. I want to load both files with application.rb.
To achieve this goal I Have written code in application.rb:
ENV.update YAML.load_file('config/application.yml')[Rails.env] rescue {}
ENV.update YAML.load_file('config/linkedin.yml')[Rails.env] rescue {}
But this is not appropriate way, Please suggest me how can I load all yaml files access with ENV variable that.
Assuming that your YAML files are placed in the config folder, in your application.rb you can do this right under the requires (before the module definition)
APP_YAML = YAML::load_file(File.join(File.dirname(File.expand_path(__FILE__)), 'application.yml'))
LINKED_IN = YAML::load_file(File.join(File.dirname(File.expand_path(__FILE__)), 'linked_in.yml'))
This way, you can then access the contents of the file in a constant that is available everywhere in the app ie. LINKED_IN["secret"]
This is a great way to handle constants that you don't want to check in to source control, but actually I've found that using Figaro is the best way to handle constants. Essentially, Figaro will autogenerate/load an application.yml and all you have to do is put your constants in there.
After this, you can access with ENV["LINKED_IN_SECRET"] - as a plus, this emulates how Heroku would do it with their config:set variable system so you don't have to worry about environment changes :)

Where to store (structured) configuration data in Rails

For the Rails 3 application I'm writing, I am considering reading some of the configuration data from XML, YAML or JSON files on the local filesystem.
The point is: where should I put those files? Is there any default location in Rails apps where to store this kind of content?
As a side note, my app is deployed on Heroku.
What I always do is:
If the file is a general configuration file: I create a YAML file in the directory /config with one upper class key per environment
If I have a file for each environment (big project): I create one YAML per environment and store them in /config/environments/
Then I create an initializer where I load the YAML, I symbolize the keys of the config hash and assign it to a constant like APP_CONFIG
I will usually adopt this method :
a config/config.yml
development:
another_key: "test"
app_name: "My App"
test:
another_key: "test"
production:
prova: "ciao"
then create a ostruct in a initializer
#config/initializer/load_config.rb
require 'ostruct'
config = OpenStruct.new(YAML.load_file("#{RAILS_ROOT}/config/config.yml"))
::AppSetting = OpenStruct.new(config.send(RAILS_ENV))
No DB table, per environment setup and you could retrive info in a simple way
AppSetting.another_key
AppSetting.app_name
here a reference
have a nice day!
You can also include it in a model so you can call Settings.var_name from anywhere in your app and it will parse the file for the right environment.
With settingslogic gem:
class Settings < Settingslogic
source "#{Rails.root}/config/settings.yml"
namespace Rails.env
end
Rails creates a config directory by default, containing a lot of configuration info for your application, including the database and environment information. I think that's a logical first place to consider.
A second choice would be the app directory, which contains all the models, views and controllers for the application, but I think of that directory as containing executable code and its templates, so I'd go with the config directory, personally.

How to define custom configuration variables in Rails?

I was wondering how to add custom configuration variables to a Rails application and how to access them in the controller?
Secondly, I was planning to have S3 support for uploads in my application, if I wanted to add a yaml file with the S3 access, secret key, how do I initialize it in my Rails App and how do I access the values that I have defined in that config file.
In Rails 3, Application specific custom configuration data can be placed in the application configuration object. The configuration can be assigned in the initialization files or the environment files -- say for a given application MyApp:
MyApp::Application.config.custom_config_variable = :my_config_setting
or
Rails.configuration.custom_config_variable = :my_config_setting
To read the setting, simply call the configuration variable without setting it:
Rails.configuration.custom_config_variable
=> :my_config_setting
UPDATE Rails 4
In Rails 4 there a new way for this => http://guides.rubyonrails.org/configuring.html#custom-configuration
Update 1
Very recommended: I'm going with Rails Config gem nowadays for the fine grained control it provides.
Update2
If you want a quick solution, then check Jack Pratt's answer below.
Although my original answer below still works, this answer is now outdated. I recommend looking at updates 1 and 2.
Original Answer:
For a quick solution, watching the "YAML Configuration File" screen cast by Ryan Bates should be very helpful.
In summary:
# config/initializers/load_config.rb
APP_CONFIG = YAML.load_file("#{Rails.root}/config/config.yml")[Rails.env]
# application.rb
if APP_CONFIG['perform_authentication']
# Do stuff
end
In Rails 3.0.5, the following approach worked for me:
In config/environments/development.rb, write
config.custom_config_key = :config_value
The value custom_config_key can then be referenced from other files using
Rails.application.config.custom_config_key
In Rails 4
Assuming you put your custom variables into a yaml file:
# config/acme.yml
development:
:api_user: 'joe'
:api_pass: 's4cret'
:timeout: 20
Create an initializer to load them:
# config/initializers/acme.rb
acme_config = Rails.application.config_for :acme
Rails.application.configure do
config.acme = ActiveSupport::OrderedOptions.new
config.acme.api_user = acme_config[:api_user]
config.acme.api_pass = acme_config[:api_pass]
config.acme.timeout = acme_config[:timeout]
end
Now anywhere in your app you can access these values like so:
Rails.configuration.acme.api_user
It is convenient that Rails.application.config_for :acme will load your acme.yml and use the correct environment.
This works in rails 3.1:
in config/environment.rb (or in config/environments/.. to target a specific environment) :
YourApp::Application.config.yourKey = 'foo'
This will be accessible in controller or views like this:
YourApp::Application.config.yourKey
(YourApp should be replaced by your application name.)
Note: It's Ruby code, so if you have a lot of config keys, you can do this :
in config/environment.rb :
YourApp::Application.configure do
config.something = foo
config.....
config....
.
config....
end
Since Rails 4.2, without additional gems, you can load config/hi.yml simply by using Rails.application.config_for :hi.
For example:
touch config/passwords.yml
#config/passwords.yml
development:
username: 'a'
password: 'b'
production:
username: 'aa'
password: 'bb'
touch config/initializers/constants.rb
#config/initializers/constants.rb
AUTHENTICATION = Rails.application.config_for :passwords
and now you can use AUTHENTICATION constant everywhere in your application:
#rails c production
:001> AUTHENTICATION['username'] => 'aa'
then add passwords.yml to .gitignore: echo /config/passwords.yml >> .gitignore, create an example file for your comfort cp /config/passwords.yml /config/passwords.example.yml and then just edit your example file in your production console with actual production values.
Rails 6 and 7
Many outdated answers, so adding one that is specific to Rails 6.
Application specific configuration goes in initializer files. Details are here: edge guides
Example:
config/initializers/foo.rb
module MyApp
class Application < Rails::Application
config.test_val = 'foo'
end
end
Alternatively:
Rails.application.config.test_val = 'foo'
This can now be accessed as:
Rails.configuration.test_val
Many more possibilities.
edge guides #custom-configuration
ex, you can also set up nested namespace configurations:
config.x.payment_processing.schedule = :daily
config.x.payment_processing.retries = 3
config.super_debugger = true
or use config_for to load entire custom config files:
config/payment.yml
production:
environment: production
merchant_id: production_merchant_id
public_key: production_public_key
private_key: production_private_key
development:
environment: sandbox
merchant_id: development_merchant_id
public_key: development_public_key
private_key: development_private_key
Then load it with:
config/initializers/load_payment.rb
module MyApp
class Application < Rails::Application
config.payment = config_for(:payment)
end
end
I just wanted to update this for the latest cool stuff in Rails 4.2, you can now do this inside any of your config/**/*.rb files:
config.x.whatever.you.want = 42
...and this will be available in your app as:
Rails.configuration.x.whatever.you.want
See more here: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/configuring.html#custom-configuration
Check out this neat gem doing exactly that:
https://github.com/mislav/choices
This way your sensitive data won't be exposed in open source projects
I created a simple plugin for YAML settings: Yettings
It works in a similar fashion to the code in khelll's answer, but you only need to add this YAML configuration file:
app/config/yetting.yml
The plugin dynamically creates a class that allows you to access the YML settings as class methods in your app like so:
Yetting.your_setting
Also, if you want to use multiple settings files with unique names, you can place them in a subdirectory inside app/config like this:
app/config/yettings/first.yml
app/config/yettings/second.yml
Then you can access the values like this:
FirstYetting.your_setting
SecondYetting.your_setting
It also provides you with default settings that can be overridden per environment. You can also use erb inside the yml file.
I really like the settingslogic gem. Very easy to set up and use.
https://github.com/binarylogic/settingslogic
If you use Heroku or otherwise have need to keep your application settings as environment variables, the figaro gem is very helpful.
I like to use rails-settings for global configuration values that need to be changeable via web interface.
Something we've starting doing at work is the ActiveSupport Ordered Hash
Which allows you to define your configuration cleanly inside the environment files e.g.
config.service = ActiveSupport::OrderedOptions.new
config.service.api_key = ENV['SERVICE_API_KEY']
config.service.shared_secret = ENV['SERVICE_SHARED_SECRET']
I would suggest good approach how to deal with configuration in your application at all. There are three basic rules:
change your configuration not a code;
use configurations over conditions;
write code that means something.
To have more detailed overview follow this link: Rails configuration in the proper way

What is the best way to store app specific configuration in rails?

I need to store app specific configuration in rails. But it has to be:
reachable in any file (model, view, helpers and controllers
environment specified (or not), that means each environment can overwrite the configs specified in environment.rb
I've tried to use environment.rb and put something like
USE_USER_APP = true
that worked to me but when trying to overwrite it in a specific environment it wont work because production.rb, for instance, seems to be inside the Rails:Initializer.run block.
So, anyone?
Look at Configatron: http://github.com/markbates/configatron/tree/master
I have yet to use it, but he's actively developing it now, and looks quite nice.
I was helping a friend set up the solution mentioned by Ricardo yesterday. We hacked it a bit by loading the YAML file with something similar to this (going from memory here):
require 'ostruct'
require 'yaml'
require 'erb'
#config = OpenStruct.new(YAML.load_file("#{RAILS_ROOT}/config/config.yml"))
config = OpenStruct.new(YAML.load(ERB.new(File.read("#{RAILS_ROOT}/config/config.yml")).result))
env_config = config.send(RAILS_ENV)
config.common.update(env_config) unless env_config.nil?
::AppConfig = OpenStruct.new(config.common)
This allowed him to embed Ruby code in the config, like in Rhtml:
development:
path_to_something: <%= RAILS_ROOT %>/config/something.yml
The most basic thing to do is to set a class variable from your environment.rb. I've done this for Google Analytics. Essentially I want a different key depending on which environment I'm in so development or staging don't skew the metrics.
This is how I did it.
In lib/analytics/google_analytics.rb:
module Analytics
class GoogleAnalytics
##account_id = nil
cattr_accessor :account_id
end
end
And then in environment.rb or in environments/production.rb or any of the other environment files:
Analytics::GoogleAnalytics.account_id = "xxxxxxxxx"
Then anywhere you ned to reference, say the default layout with the Google Analytics JavaScript, it you just call Analytics::GoogleAnalytics.account_id.
I found a good way here
Use environment variables. Heroku uses this. Remember that if you keep configuration in the codebase, anyone with access to the code has access to any secret configuration (aws api keys, gateway api keys, etc).
daemontool's envdir is a good tool for setting configuration, I'm pretty sure that's what Heroku uses to give application their environment variables.
I have used Rails Settings Cached.
It is very simple to use, keeps your configuration values cached and allows you to change them dynamically.

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