ActiveRecordSurvey

An attempt at a more versatile data structure for making and taking surveys.

This gem tries to be as unopinionated as possible on the peripheral details on how you implement a survey.

The goal is to give a simple interface for creating surveys and validating the answers given to them.

Release Notes

0.1.36

• ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer#build_link and ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer#remove_link moved to ActiveRecordSurvey::Node so that questions can directly follow one another without answers
• Implemented ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Question#next_questions to return all questions that follow either directly or through answers

0.1.33

• ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer#sibling_index method for setting position as well

0.1.32

• ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer#sibling_index for regular answers and chained answers

0.1.31

• ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer#move_up and ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer#move_down implemented so you can change the position of answers relative to one another i both branching and chained types. I am not happy yet with this. AwesomeNestedSet seems to require nodes exist before moving them which is a limitation I'd like to not have.

0.1.30

• ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Question now throws ArgumentError if answers of different types are added to it

0.1.29

• ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer now cleans up associated node_maps on destruction
• extending/including ActiveRecordSurvey::Answer::Chained now rebuilds broken links in the parent<->child node_maps if a middle node_map is destroyed

0.1.26

• Major refactor of answer#build_link and answer#remove_link
• ActiveRecordSurvey::Node now has a direct reference to its survey. Don't forget to run the install task Update_0_1_26_ActiveRecordSurvey
• survey#build_question removed, no longer needed, just use survey.questions.build

0.1.24

• Refactored class ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Chain to module ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Chained - this functionality makes way more sense implemented as a module.

0.1.23

• Added ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Chain for common chainable interface for answers

0.1.22

• answer#remove_link cleaned up so it can be understood

0.1.21

• answer#build_link now detects and throws an error when a infinite loop is added

0.1.20

• answer#remove_link wasn't correct. Fixed and added unit tests

0.1.15

• Don't consider instance_nodes marked for destruction when validating

0.1.14

• build_question now only accepts a question
• Exceptions added

0.1.13

• Added Question#build_answer and Answer#build_link to make survey creation possible without dealing with internal nodes

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'active_record_survey'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install active_record_survey

Installation

rails generate active_record_survey:active_record

Usage

See the spec file for more detailed usage.

Please be aware that the default gem does not prescribe how your ActiveRecordSurvey::Node should store text - that's up for you to implement.

See the spec for a sample implementation or ActiveRecordSurveyApi for a fully translatable implementation using the Globalize gem.

The usage below with :text => "" will not actually work unless you implement :text

Build a basic survey

# Building surveys
@survey = ActiveRecordSurvey::Survey.new()

@q1 = @survey.questions.build(:type => "ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Question", :text => "Question #1", :survey => @survey)
@q1_a1 = ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer.new(:text => "Q1 Answer #1")
@q1_a2 = ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer.new(:text => "Q1 Answer #2")
@q1_a3 = ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer.new(:text => "Q1 Answer #3")
@q1.build_answer(@q1_a1)
@q1.build_answer(@q1_a2)
@q1.build_answer(@q1_a3)

@q2 = @survey.questions.build(:type => "ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Question", :text => "Question #2", :survey => @survey)
@q2_a1 = ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer.new(:text => "Q2 Answer #1")
@q2_a2 = ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer.new(:text => "Q2 Answer #2")
@q2.build_answer(@q2_a1)
@q2.build_answer(@q2_a2)

@q3 = @survey.questions.build(:type => "ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Question", :text => "Question #3", :survey => @survey)
@q3_a1 = ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer.new(:text => "Q3 Answer #1")
@q3_a2 = ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer.new(:text => "Q3 Answer #2")
@q3.build_answer(@q3_a1)
@q3.build_answer(@q3_a2)

@q4 = @survey.questions.build(:type => "ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Question", :text => "Question #4", :survey => @survey)
@q4_a1 = ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer.new(:text => "Q4 Answer #1")
@q4_a2 = ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer.new(:text => "Q4 Answer #2")
@q4.build_answer(@q4_a1)
@q4.build_answer(@q4_a2)

# Link up Q1
@q1_a1.build_link(@q2)
@q1_a2.build_link(@q3)
@q1_a3.build_link(@q4)

# Link up Q2
@q2_a1.build_link(@q4)
@q2_a2.build_link(@q3)

# Link up Q3
@q3_a1.build_link(@q4)
@q3_a2.build_link(@q4)

# Commit everything to the database!
@survey.save

The will build a survey with the following node structure.

Answer Types

A number of different answer types are implemented by default.

• Default (a.k.a radio)
• Boolean (a.k.a. checkbox)
• Rank
• Scale
• Text

Default

ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer

The default answer type (think of it like a radio question) - this is currently the only answer type you can attach to a question so that depending on the answer given you can branch to a different question.

Boolean

ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Boolean

True/False (0/1 actually... think of it like a checkbox) answer types.

Rank

ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Rank

Rankable (answer value is 1..NUM_ANSWERS) to rank the answers in relation to one another.

Scale

ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Scale

Scale (answer value is a min/max on a scale of A->B) where you can specificy each answer on a scale

Text

ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Text

Textual answer to a question (e.g. please tell us what you thinik...)

Answer Validation

Enforcing answer criteria is accomplished by attaching validation nodes to ActiveRecordSurvey::Node records.

When a survey is taken validations are automatically run and their criteria is enforced.

A number of validations are already implemented by default.

You can implement your own validation by extending the ActiveRecordSurvey::ValidationNode class.

• MaximumAnswer
• MinimumAnswer
• MaximumValue
• MinimumValue
• MaximumLength
• MinimumLength

MaximumAnswer

ActiveRecordSurvey::ValidationNode::MaximumAnswer

These nodes should only be attached to nodes which extend ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Question nodes.

Ensures that a maximum numer of answers have been selected. For chained answer nodes such as ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Boolean,ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Rank, and ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Scale it enforces a maximum amount that be answered.

MinimumAnswer

ActiveRecordSurvey::ValidationNode::MinimumAnswer

These nodes should only be attached to nodes which extend ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Question nodes.

Ensures that a minimum numer of answers have been selected. For chained answer nodes such as ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Boolean,ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Rank, and ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Scale it enforces a minimum amount that can be answered.

MaximumValue

ActiveRecordSurvey::ValidationNode::MaximumValue

These nodes should only be attached to nodes which extend ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer nodes which record an scalar answer value such as ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Scale.

Ensures that a minimum scalar value has been entered.

MinimumValue

ActiveRecordSurvey::ValidationNode::MinimumValue

These nodes should only be attached to nodes which extend ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer nodes which record an scalar answer value such as ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Scale.

Ensures that a maximum scalar value has been entered.

MaximumLength

ActiveRecordSurvey::ValidationNode::MaximumLength

These nodes should only be attached to nodes which extend ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer nodes nodes which record a text value such as ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Text.

Ensures that a maximum amount of text has been answered.

MinimumLength

ActiveRecordSurvey::ValidationNode::MinimumLength

These nodes should only be attached to nodes which extend ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer nodes nodes which record a text value such as ActiveRecordSurvey::Node::Answer::Text.

Ensures that a minimum amount of text has been answered.

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/butchmarshall/active_record_survey.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.