DbSeeder

A modern Rails gem to generate seed files from your existing database data.

Perfect for creating seeds from production data, sharing database states across teams, or migrating data between environments.

Why DbSeeder?

While similar gems exist, DbSeeder offers several advantages:

• ✅ Modern & Maintained - Built for Rails 7+, actively maintained
• ✅ Memory Efficient - Batch processing for large tables (won't crash on millions of records)
• ✅ SOLID Architecture - Clean, testable, maintainable code
• ✅ Flexible Configuration - Customize output path, excluded tables, batch size, and more
• ✅ Well Tested - Comprehensive test suite with 100% core functionality coverage

DbSeeder vs Other Solutions

Feature	DbSeeder	seed_dump	Faker
Purpose	Export real data	Export real data	Generate fake data
Rails 7+	✅ Yes	⚠️ Unmaintained since 2015	✅ Yes
Batch Processing	✅ Yes	❌ No	N/A
Configurable	✅ Yes	Limited	N/A
Use Case	Production → Seeds	Production → Seeds	Testing/Development

Use DbSeeder when: You need to export real database records to seed files
Use Faker when: You need to generate fake/random data for testing

Installation

Add to your Gemfile:

gem 'db_seeder'

Then execute:

bundle install

Usage

Basic Usage

Generate seeds for all tables:

rake db:seed:generate

Generate seeds for specific table:

rake db:seed:generate TABLE=users

Configuration

Create an initializer config/initializers/db_seeder.rb:

DbSeeder.configure do |config|
  config.output_path = "db/seeds"
  config.excluded_tables = %w[schema_migrations ar_internal_metadata sessions]
  config.batch_size = 1000
  config.format = :ruby
end

Programmatic Usage

DbSeeder.generate("users")

DbSeeder.generate

Configuration Options

• output_path: Directory for generated seed files (default: "db/seeds")
• excluded_tables: Tables to skip (default: schema_migrations, ar_internal_metadata)
• batch_size: Records per batch (default: 1000)
• format: Output format (default: :ruby)

Development

bundle install
bundle exec rspec

Contributing

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

License

MIT License. See LICENSE.txt for details.