LogBook

Ruby on Rails, Automatically keeping record of all Model Changes

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem "log_book"

As the Model should be loaded after ActiveReccord has established the connection you have to add this:

# config/application.rb
config.after_initialize do
  require "log_book/event"
end

Create the table

rails generate log_book:migration
rake db:migrate

ActsOnTaggableOn dependency

rails generate acts_as_taggable_on:migration
# rake acts_as_taggable_on_engine:install:migrations # for version '~> 4.0' or superior
rake db:migrate

Usage

In any point:

LogBook.event(<who executes the action>, <over which object>, <text>, <list of tags>)

For example:

LogBook.event(current_user, item, "Item canceled", [:purchase, :canceled])

ActiveRecord integration

class MyModel < ActiveRecord::Base
  log_book
end

MyModel.create!   # => LogBook created
my_model.save!    # => LogBook created
my_model.destroy! # => LogBook created

If you want to include who executes the action use the special attribute log_book_historian:

my_model.log_book_historian = current_user
my_model.save!

If you want to mute a model change:

my_model.log_book_mute = true
my_model.save! # No LogBook::Event will be generated

If you want to mute LogBook globally:

LogBook.mute = true
my_model.save! # No LogBook::Event will be generated

If you want to ignore some fields from the changes Event:

class MyModel < ActiveRecord::Base
  log_book :ignore => [:my_counter]
end

my_model.update_atttibtes!(:my_counter => 9) # No LogBook::Event will be generated

If you want LogBook::Events to be destroyed on Model destroy:

class MyModel < ActiveRecord::Base
  log_book :dependent => :destroy
end

In other case the LogBook::Events will remain after Model destroyed.

Rails Integration

Check this example project to see how LogBook is integrated:

• Skeleton

Or this commit in a more modern Rails project:

• RailsSkeleton

TODO

Use block configuration instead of model.log_book_historian do something like:

LogBook.conf(:log_book_historian => user) do
  model.save!
end

Sate of the art

Beta version but already used in production environments