importer

Importer is a tool to help you with importing objects to your database from various sources.

Links

Docs: rdoc.info/projects/szajbus/importer

Main features:

can import from XML and CSV formats, but it’s possible to add custom parsers
reports how many new objects got imported, how many objects was modified and how many objects were invalid
can save reports to the database, along with errors for later inspection

Installation

Install the gem

gem install importer

Or the plugin

script/plugin install git://github.com/szajbus/importer.git

Generate the migrations and run them (this step may not be necessary, read below)

script/generate importer import
rake db:migrate

Add to your model

class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
  include Importer
end

And start importing

Product.import(path_to_xml_or_csv_file)

This will parse the file and import all products there are defined in it. Import summary will be saved in imports table, it will tell you how many products were created, modified or invalid. Exact information about each product (detected attributes and errors) will be saved in imported_objects table.

If you don’t want to save summaries to database you can force the importer to do a simple import with:

Product.import(path_to_xml_or_csv_file, :import => Importer::Import::Simple.create)

Customization

You can create your own parser to import from sources other than XML or CSV files. Check the implementation of one of existing parsers to find out how to write your own. Then just pass parser class to import method:

Product.import(path_to_xml_or_csv_file, :parser => YourCustomParser)

You can also create your custom Import and ImportedObject classes if you need the import summaries in other way than those currently offered (ActiveRecord which stores summaries in database and Simple which does not store them at all). Again check the current implementations to get the idea. To force the importer to use it:

Product.import(path_to_xml_or_csv_file, :import => YourCustomImport.new)

Note on Patches/Pull Requests