Serialist

Serialize anything. Why waste time migrating your table for yet another dumb attribute you won’t search on? Add one serializable field in your table, and let serialist do the rest.

Before!

class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
  serialize :preferences
end

>> a = Article.new
>> a.preferences = {}
>> a.preferences[:key] = "value"
>> a.preferences[:key]
=> "value"

After!

class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
  serialist :preferences, [:key, :other_key, :yet_another_key]
end

>> a = Article.new
>> a.key = "value"
>> a.key
=> "value"

Install the gem!

$ sudo gem install serialist

Try the demo!

$ sudo gem install sqlite3-ruby
$ rails -m http://github.com/bbenezech/serialist/raw/master/installation-template.txt serialist-example
$ cd serialist-example
$ ./script/server
open localhost:3000 and create an article

Or simply generate a migration for your existing rails app!

./script/generate serialist SerialistMigration MyModel my_serialist_attribute

Ex :

./script/generate serialist SerialistMigration Article slug
rake db:migrate

Then hook Serialist into your ActiveRecord model :

serialist :my_serialist_attribute, [:foo, :bar]
# OR
serialist :my_serialist_attribute
# See below

# Add validation as you normally would :
validates_presence_of :bar
# etc.

Serialist comes in TWO flavors!

Specific declaration (safe, use define_method)

serialist :slug, [:foo, :bar]

Allows you to serialize only the desired keys. ex :

$ ./script/console
>> a = Article.new
=> #<Article id: nil, title: nil, created_at: nil, updated_at: nil, slug: nil>
>> a.foo?
=> false
>> a.foo
=> nil
>> a.foo = "hello"
=> "hello"
>> a.foo?
=> true
>> a.taz = "hello"
=> NoMethodError: undefined method `taz=' ...
>> a
=> #<Article id: XX, title: nil, created_at: "..", updated_at: "..", slug: {:foo=>"hello"}>

Catch-all with method_missing

You should probably choose to load serialist after your other plugins/gems, because ActiveRecord won’t fire NoMethodError anymore on Serialisted models, and some plugin may want to catch it to implement their own auto-magic (aka find_all_by_title_and_description magic)

# in your model. my_serializer_attribute is the one you specify in the migration

serialist :slug

Allows you to serialize anything. ex :

$ ./script/console
>> a = Article.new
=> #<Article id: nil, title: nil, created_at: nil, updated_at: nil, slug: nil>
>> a.foo
=> nil
>> a.foo?
=> false
>> a.foo = "hello"
=> "hello"
>> a.foo?("hello")
=> true
>> a.foo?
=> true
>> a.foo
=> "hello"
>> a.baz?
=> false
>> a.baz
=> nil
>> a
=> #<Article id: XX, title: nil, created_at: "..", updated_at: "..", slug: {:foo=>"hello"}>

Beware!

# Don’t use method#2 with Serialist loaded before other ActiveRecord “automagicians” plugins

# Watch out for conflict with existing attributes and methods!

# And of course don’t serialize attributes you may want to search on, or index on, or use with any other database related stuff.