SUMMARY

This Rails plugin provides a Dictionary class that can be inherited by models that need some data stored in an ActiveRecord-ish fashion when actually putting it in the database is too heavy-handed.

INSTALLATION

ruby script/plugin install git://github.com/progmatica/convenient_dictionary.git

USAGE

The lib will be picked up automatically when Rails loads.

EXAMPLE

Dictionary is meant to be included by model classes; for example, you could create a file in your models/ folder called ‘role.rb’ and then populate it like so:

class Role
  include Dictionary

def self.all_entries
@@all_entries ||= populate( [
{ :id => 1, :name => “boss” },
{ :id => 2, :name => “manager” },
{ :id => 3, :name => “grunt” }
] )
end
end

It isn’t as scary as it looks. Just focus on the hashes. So what do we get?

>> Role.fetch 2
=> #<Role:0x7f6a29eb7810 @id=2, @name="manager">
>> r = Role.fetch 1
=> #<Role:0x7f6a29eb7838 @id=1, @name="boss">
>> r.is_boss?
=> true
>> r == Role.fetch( :first )
=> true
>> r = Role.fetch( 'manager' )
=> #<Role:0x7f6a29eb7810 @id=2, @name="manager">
>> Role.fetch :all
=> [#<Role:0x7f6a29eb7838 @id=1, @name="boss">, #<Role:0x7f6a29eb7810 @id=2, @name="manager">, #<Role:0x7f6a29eb77c0 @id=3, @name="grunt">]
>> Role.options
=> [["boss", 1], ["manager", 2], ["grunt", 3]]

That last function is a useful helper for the select_tag()

Is that all? Pretend for a moment that you have a User model with attribute role_id. You could say:

User.find( :first, :conditions => { :role_id => Role.fetch( 'grunt' ) } )

And as long as you don’t have method name collisions, you can use this shorthand to bypass the ‘fetch’ method altogether:

>> Role.boss
=> #<Role:0x7f6a29eb7838 @id=1, @name="boss">

Pretty handy, says the robot with no arms.

TIPS

Each entry must at least have an ‘id’ and ‘name’, but can have any other attributes as well. Just add additional attr_accessor statements in your model class definition. T-Squares are useful tools, as long as the ‘T’ isn’t written in cursive.