HyperactiveResource
=======

Current Release: v0.1

Many have said that ActiveResource is not really “complete”. On the surface, this means that some features that are
documented aren’t implemented. Digging a little deeper, we find that some features that should exist don’t.

Arguably, a “complete” ActiveResource would behave like ActiveRecord or, as the rdoc for ActiveResource states “very
similarly to Active Record”.

Hyperactive Resource is MDL’s extension to ActiveResource::Base written to support our Patient Registry and goes a long
way towards the goal of an ActiveResource that behaves like ActiveRecord.

Features

• Client side validations
• Hooks for before_validate, before_save
• Dynamic finders: find_by_X
• save!
• Awareness of associations between resources: belongs_to, has_many, has_one & columns
  • Patient.new.name returns nil instead of MethodMissing
  • Patient.new.races returns [] instead of MethodMissing
  • pat = Patient.new; pat.gender_id = 1; pat.gender #Will return find the gender obj
• Resources can be associated with records
• Records can be associated with resources
• ActiveRecord-like attributes= (updates rather than replaces)
• ActiveRecord-like #load that doesn’t #dup attributes (stores direct reference)
• Supports saving resources that :include other resources via:
  • Nested resource saving (creating a patient will create their associated addresses)
  • Mapping associations ([:gender].id will serialize as :gender_id)

Example
===

1. Install the plugin via:

   cd path/to/rails_root/vendor/plugins
    git clone git://github.com/lukegalea/hyperactiveresource.git

2. Create a HyperactiveResource where you would normally use ActiveResource and define the meta-data/associations that drive the dynamic magic:

   class Address < HyperactiveResource      
      self.columns = [ :street_address, :city, :zipcode, :home_phone_number ]
      self.belong_tos = [ :country, :state ]
      self.has_manys = [ :people ]
    end

3. Enjoy the magic

   address = Address.new
    address.country # nil instead of method_missing
    address.country_id = 5
    address.country #Returns Country.find(5)
  etc..

Copyright © 2008 Medical Decision Logic, released under the MIT license