I have an Appointment model, whose available_dates can include multiple dates (say, available in Jan 1, 5, 6 and 7).
My question is very basic: how should I store available dates for each event?
What I can think of is a table Avaiable_Dates with two columns: event_id and date. Each event would have multiple rows, one date per row. It seems to be cumbersome to query entire table to make sure we got all dates of an event. A Hash {event => {date1, date2, date3}} would be faster, but I don't know how to implement it using ActiveRecord.
Thank you.
It might not be a bad idea to just use the separate model for available times, but if you decide to go the hash route you can do so using the serialize keyword. You have to tell ActiveRecord to serialize the variable, and then it will do the serialization and deserialization automatically whenever you access the hash.
Saving arrays, hashes, and other non-mappable objects in text columns
Active Record can serialize any object in text columns using YAML. To do so, you must specify this with a call to the class method serialize. This makes it possible to store arrays, hashes, and other non-mappable objects without doing any additional work.
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
serialize :preferences
end
user = User.create(:preferences => { "background" => "black", "display" => large })
User.find(user.id).preferences # => { "background" => "black", "display" => large }
You can also specify a class option as the second parameter that’ll raise an exception if a serialized object is retrieved as a descendant of a class not in the hierarchy.
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
serialize :preferences, Hash
end
user = User.create(:preferences => %w( one two three ))
User.find(user.id).preferences # raises SerializationTypeMismatch
When you specify a class option, the default value for that attribute will be a new instance of that class.
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
serialize :preferences, OpenStruct
end
user = User.new
user.preferences.theme_color = "red"
From rubyonrails.org
From a design perspective, if you think you will ever add any more data to the available time object then you should make it its own model. Otherwise a serialized hash seems fine.
I don't see a problem with the separate table that you mentioned, I would go with that. It will also be easier to extend later which you will appreciate when the time comes.
Related
I'm building an application where users are part of an Organisation. An organisation has many Lists, which in turn have many ListItems.
Now, I would like for admin users to be able to specify which attributes are available on list items, based on the organisation they belong to (or rather, on the organisation their list belongs to), without having to touch any code.
So far, when defining attributes that are not bound to a specific column in the database, I have used document_serializable, a nifty little gem (based on virtus) which serializes virtual attributes to a JSONB column in the db. I like this approach, because I get all of virtus' goodies (types, coercion, validations, etc.), and because data ends up sitting in a JSONB column, meaning it can be loaded quickly, indexed, and searched through with relative ease.
I would like to keep using this approach when adding these user-defined attributes on the fly. So I'd like to do something like:
class ListItem < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :list
delegate :organisation, to: :list
organisation.list_attributes.each do |a, t|
attribute a, t
end
end
Where Organisation#list_attributes returns the user-defined hash of attribute names and their associated types, which, for example, might look like:
{
name: String,
age: Integer
}
As you might have guessed, this does not work, because organisation.list_attributes.each actually runs in the context of ListItem, which is an instance of Class, and Class doesn't have an #organisation method. I hope that's worded in a way that makes sense1.
I've tried using after_initialize, but at that point in the object's lifecycle, #attribute is owned by ActiveRecord::AttributeMethods::Read and not DocumentSerializable::ClassMethods, so it's an entirely different method and I can't figure out wether I can still access the one I need, and wether that would even work.
Another alternative would be to find the organisation in question in some explicit way, Organisation#find-style, but I honestly don't know where I should store the information necessary to do so.
So, my question: at the moment of instantiating (initializing or loading2) a record, is there a way I can retrieve a hash stored in a database column of one of its relations? Or am I trying to build this in a completely misguided way, and if so, how else should I go about it?
1 To clarify, if I were to use the hash directly like so:
class ListItem < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :list
delegate :organisation, to: :list
{
name: String,
age: Integer
}.each do |a, t|
attribute a, t
end
end
it would work, my issue is solely with getting a record's relation at this earlier point in time.
2 My understanding is that Rails runs a model's code whenever a record of that type is created or loaded from the database, meaning the virtual attributes are defined anew every time this happens, which is why I'm asking how to do this in both cases.
at the moment of instantiating (initializing or loading) a record, is
there a way I can retrieve a hash stored in a database column of one
of its relations?
Yes. This is fairly trivial as long as your relations are setup correctly / simply. Lets say we have these three models:
class ListItem < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :list
end
class List < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :organisation
has_many :list_items
end
class Organisation < ApplicationRecord
has_many :lists
end
We can instantiate a ListItem and then retrieve data from anyone of its parents.
#list_item = ListItem.find(5) # assume that the proper inherited
foreign_keys exist for this and
its parent
#list = #list_item.list
#hash = #list.organisation.special_hash_of_org
And if we wanted to do this at every instance of a ListItem, we can use Active Record Callbacks like this:
class ListItem < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :list
# this is called on ListItem.new and whenever we pull from our DB
after_initialize do |list_item|
puts "You have initialized a ListItem!"
list = list_item.list
hash = list.organisation.special_hash_of_org
end
end
But after_initialize feels like a strange usage for this kind of thing. Maybe a helper method would be a better option!
I'm trying to create a data visualization site for time series data.
I want the user to be able to upload their own csv's of time series data. So that my web application can create graphs from it.
The amount of fields the user can have should be variable. A user can have just temperature, or he can have temperature and humidity. I want to use only one model to handle the variable amount of fields. A template model maybe?
I think the problem here is with ActiveRecord and the way I want it. I'd probably have to create a separate Model for each table the user wants to handle different number of fields.
Is there a better way to handle this using ActiveRecord? Suggestions? I'm lost and I haven't been able to move forward at all. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Ejay
EDIT:
Another I thought of was a model that represents each data column. So that every instance would contain the same number attributes. Something like, :name, :type, :timestamp, :data. However, this seems highly inefficient because I would have to access a number of tables in order to upload one csv file.
Is this the correct way I should be thinking about this?
My suggesstion is having only model, called DataSet. DataSet has three columns, :name, :data and :user_id. The type of :name should be something like varchar(255). The type of :data is just text, and it's purpose is to store a json blob representing the CSV.
Let's say the CSV looks something like this:
num,value
1,4
2,5
3,4
4,100
5,60
You parse this into a hash that looks like this
{
1 => 4,
2 => 5,
3 => 4,
4 => 100,
5 => 60
}
When you want to write this to the database, just do:
DataSet s = DataSet.new
s.name = 'Whatever'
s.data = parse_csv(csv_file).to_json # "{\"1\":4,\"2\":5,\"3\":4,\"4\":100,\"5\":60}"
s.save
To get the data back out, you can do this:
ActiveSupport::JSON.decode s.data
You can ever edit your model to do this conversion automatically:
class DataSet < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
def data=(data_hash)
write_attribute :data, data_hash.to_json
end
def data
ActiveSupport::JSON.decode read_attribute(:data)
end
end
New to Rails and Ruby and trying to do things correctly.
Here are my models. Everything works fine, but I want to do things the "right" way so to speak.
I have an import process that takes a CSV and tries to either create a new record or update an existing one.
So the process is 1.) parse csv row 2.) find or create record 3.) save record
I have this working perfectly, but the code seems like it could be improved. If ParcelType wasn't involved it would be fine, since I'm creating/retrieving a parcel FROM the Manufacturer, that foreign key is pre-populated for me. But the ParcelType isn't. Anyway to have both Type and Manufacturer pre-populated since I'm using them both in the search?
CSV row can have multiple manufacturers per row (results in 2 almost identical rows, just with diff mfr_id) so that's what the .each is about
manufacturer_id.split(";").each do |mfr_string|
mfr = Manufacturer.find_by_name(mfr_string)
# If it's a mfr we don't care about, don't put it in the db
next if mfr.nil?
# Unique parcel is defined by it's manufacturer, it's type, it's model number, and it's reference_number
parcel = mfr.parcels.of_type('FR').find_or_initialize_by_model_number_and_reference_number(attributes[:model_number], attributes[:reference_number])
parcel.assign_attributes(attributes)
# this line in particular is a bummer. if it finds a parcel and I'm updating, this line is superfulous, only necessary when it's a new parcel
parcel.parcel_type = ParcelType.find_by_code('FR')
parcel.save!
end
class Parcel < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :parcel_type
belongs_to :manufacturer
def self.of_type(type)
joins(:parcel_type).where(:parcel_types => {:code => type.upcase}).readonly(false) unless type.nil?
end
end
class Manufacturer < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :parcels
end
class ParcelType < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :parcels
end
It sounds like the new_record? method is what you're looking for.
new_record?() public
Returns true if this object hasn’t been saved yet — that is, a record
for the object doesn’t exist yet; otherwise, returns false.
The following will only execute if the parcel object is indeed a new record:
parcel.parcel_type = ParcelType.find_by_code('FR') if parcel.new_record?
What about 'find_or_create'?
I have wanted to use this from a long time, check these links.
Usage:
http://rubyquicktips.com/post/344181578/find-or-create-an-object-in-one-command
Several attributes:
Rails find_or_create by more than one attribute?
Extra:
How can I pass multiple attributes to find_or_create_by in Rails 3?
I have two tables:
stores
raw_stores_data
The raw_stores_data is received from a third party daily.
I'd update certain fields of the stores model if those fields have been modified for that record in raw_stores_data.
Currently I have a bunch of conditional statements that check each of those fields. Is there any better way to code this?
new_data = raw_stores_data.all.select do |item|
item.store_id.present?
end
new_data.each do |item|
if item.field1 != item.stores.field1
...
...
...
# update record with hash of fields to update created above
end
You could add an association and special mutators to the 'raw' model that know how manipulate the 'stores' object. This serves to keep the model code in the model. Thin controller, comprehensive models, etc.
class Store < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :raw_stores_data
end
class RawStoresData < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :store
def field1=(value)
store.field1 = value
store.save!
field1 = value
end
end
I'm hand waving at some of the details, and you might want to reverse the direction of the association or make it go both directions.
EDIT:
You would use this as such:
raw_data = RawStoreData.find(param[:id]) # or new or however you get this object
raw_data.field1 = param[:field1]
The act of assigning will use the 'field1=' method, and make the change to the associated store object. If you're worried about saving unnecessarily, you could conditionalize in that method to only save if the value changed.
I hope this is clearer.
As an extension of the question
How to retrieve the hash values in the views in rails
I have some doubts of keeping hash values in the table..
I have a user detail table where i am maintaining the additional details of the user in a column named additional_info in a hash format .. Will it be good in keeping like so...
As if the user scenario changes if the user wants to find all the users under a particular project where i kept the project to which the user belongs in the hash format..
Give some suggestions..
Simple solution is to serialiaze it:
class FooBar < ActiveRecord::Base
# ...
serialize :additional_info
#...
end
This internally uses the YAML serializer. You can assign any object that can be serialized using YAML.
foo = FooBar.first
foo.additional_info = {:foo => 'Lorem', :bar => 'ipsum'}
foo.save
foo.additional_info[:foo] # Gives 'Lorem'