= acts_as_audited

acts_as_audited is an ActiveRecord extension that logs all changes to your models in an audits table.

== Installation

* Install the plugin into your rails app 
  If you are using Rails 2.1:

    script/plugin install git://github.com/collectiveidea/acts_as_audited.git
  
  For versions prior to 2.1:

    git clone git://github.com/collectiveidea/acts_as_audited.git vendor/plugins/acts_as_audited

* Generate the migration
    script/generate audited_migration add_audits_table
    rake db:migrate

== Auditing in Rails

If you're using acts_as_audited within Rails, you can simply declare which models should be audited.  acts_as_audited 
can also automatically record the user that made the change if your controller has a <tt>current_user</tt> method.

  class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
    audit User, List, Item
  protected
    def current_user
      @user ||= User.find(session[:user])
    end
  end
  
== Customizing

To get auditing outside of Rails, or to customize which fields are audited within Rails, you can explicitly declare 
<tt>acts_as_audited</tt> on your models:

    class User < ActiveRecord::Base
      acts_as_audited :except => [:password, :mistress]
    end

See http://opensoul.org/2006/07/21/acts_as_audited for more information.

== Caveats

Auditing with user support depends on Rails' caching mechanisms, therefore auditing isn't enabled during development 
mode. To test that auditing is working, start up your app in production mode, or change the following options in 
config/environments/environment.rb: 

  config.cache_classes = true
  config.action_controller.perform_caching = true
  
Also, if your model declares +attr_accessible+ after +acts_as_audited+, you need to set +:protect+ to false. 
acts_as_audited uses +attr_protected+ internally to prevent malicious users from unassociating your audits, and Rails 
does not allow both +attr_protected+ and +attr_accessible+. It will default to false if +attr_accessible+ is called 
before +acts_as_audited+, but needs to be explicitly set if it is called after.

  class User < ActiveRecord::Base
    acts_as_audited :protect => false
    attr_accessible :name
  end

=== ActiveScaffold

Many users have also reported problems with acts_as_audited and ActiveScaffold, which appears to be caused by a 
limitation in ActiveScaffold not supporting polymorphic associations. To get it to work with ActiveScaffold:

  class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
    audit MyModel, :only => [:create, :update, :destroy]
  end

== Compatability

acts_as_audited works with Rails 2.0 or later.