AbstractBuilder

AbstractBuilder gives you a simple DSL for declaring structures that beats manipulating giant hash structures. This is particularly helpful when the generation process is fraught with conditionals and loops.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'abstract_builder'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install abstract_builder

Usage

AbstractBuilder gives you a simple DSL for declaring structures:

builder = AbstractBuilder.new
builder.(company, :name, :created_at, :updated_at)
builder.size company.employees.count
builder.merge! company.metadata

builder.address do |address_builder|
  address_builder.street company.address.street
  address_builder.number company.address.number
end

builder.phones company.phones do |phone_builder, phone|
  phone_builder.number phone.number
  phone_builder.contact phone.contact
end

builder.data!
{
  :name => "...",
  :created_at => "...",
  :updated_at => "...",
  :size => "...",
  :metadata => { ... },
  :address => {
    :street => "...",
    :number => "..."
  },
  :phones => [
    {
      :number => "...",
      :contact => "..."
    }
  ]
}

Alternatively, you can use the low-level API for declaring complex structures:

builder = AbstractBuilder.new

company.block! company.uuid do |block_builder|
  block_builder.name company.name

  company.phones.each do |phone|
    builder.set! "phone_number_#{phone.index}", phone.number
  end

  company.messages.each_slice(2).each_with_index do |messages, index|
    builder.array! "messages_#{index}", messages do |message_builder, message|
      message_builder.content message.content
    end
  end
end

builder.data!
{
  "461d84cf-039e-4b86-9e92-8f04cce19a1d" => {
    :name => "...",
    :phone_number_0 => "...",
    :phone_number_1 => "..."
    :messages_0 => [
      {
        :content => "..."
      },
      {
        :content => "..."
      }
    ],
    :messages_1 => [
      {
        :content => "..."
      }
    ]
  },
}

Since the AbstractBuilder is abstract to the data protocol, you may serialize the result into any protocol you want, like JSON:

JSON.dump(builder.data!)

Be aware that if you are doing this over and over again, you can inherit from AbstractBuilder to DRY:

class MyBuilder < AbstractBuilder
  def to_json
    JSON.dump(data!)
  end

  def to_yaml
    YAML.dump(data!)
  end

  def to_msgpack
    MessagePack.pack(data!)
  end
end

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 abstract_builder.gemspec, 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/sobrinho/abstract_builder. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

License

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

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the AbstractBuilder project’s codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.