= acts_as_enumeration

+acts_as_enumeration+ adds support for declaring an ActiveRecord class as an
enumeration.

== Resources

Wiki

* http://wiki.pluginaweek.org/Acts_as_enumeration

API

* http://api.pluginaweek.org/acts_as_enumeration

Development

* http://dev.pluginaweek.org/browser/trunk/acts_as_enumeration

Source

* http://svn.pluginaweek.org/trunk/acts_as_enumeration

== Description

Support for enumerations is dependent on the type of database you use.  For
example, MySQL has native support for the enum data type.  However, there is
no native Rails support for defining enumerations and the associations between
it and other models in the application.

acts_as_enumeration adds support for enumerations in Rails by providing methods
for interacting with records in a table as if they were values in an
enumeration.

== Usage

=== Single-dimensional enumeration

  class Color < ActiveRecord::Base
    acts_as_enumeration
    
    create :id => 1, :name => 'red'
    create :id => 2, :name => 'blue'
    create :id => 3, :name => 'green'
  end

=== Customized enumeration

  class Book < ActiveRecord::Base
    acts_as_enumeration :title
    
    create :id => 1, :title => 'Blink'
  end

== Future development

See acts_as_enumeration_in_memory[http://wiki.pluginaweek.org/Acts_as_enumeration_in_memory]
for more information about the future development of this plugin in terms of
ease of maintenance and utilization of ActiveRecord.  acts_as_enumeration_in_memory
is an experimental re-implementation of this plugin using an in-memory SQLite3
database.

== Testing

Before you can run any tests, the following gem must be installed:
* plugin_test_helper[http://wiki.pluginaweek.org/Plugin_test_helper]

To run against a specific version of Rails:

  rake test RAILS_FRAMEWORK_ROOT=/path/to/rails

== Dependencies

* Rails 2.1 or later

== References

* Trevor Squires - enumerations_mixin[http://svn.protocool.com/rails/plugins/enumerations_mixin]