Morph allows you to emerge class definitions via calling assignment methods; mix with Hpricot for screen scrapping fun.

Morph playing with Hpricot

Here’s example code showing Morph playing with Hpricot:

 require 'hpricot'; require 'open-uri'; require 'morph'

 class Hubbit
   include Morph  # allows class to morph

   def initialize name
     doc = Hpricot open("http://github.com/#{name}")

     (doc/'label').collect do |node|
       label = node.inner_text
       value = node.next_sibling.inner_text.strip

       morph(label, value)  # morph magic happening here!
     end
   end
 end

 def Hubbit name; Hubbit.new name; end

The model emerges from the data. Let’s start by looking up ‘why’:

 why = Hubbit 'why'

What new methods do we have?

 Hubbit.morph_methods # => ["email", "email=", "name", "name="]

Ah-ha, so we have a name attribute now:

 why.name # => "why the lucky stiff"

Let’s add some of why’s projects:

 why.projects = %w[shoes hacketyhack camping hoodwinkd hpricot
                  markaby mousehole parkplace poignant sandbox]

That why’s a productive fellow! Note new accessor methods have been added:

 Hubbit.morph_methods
 # => ["email", "email=", "name", "name=", "projects", "projects="]

Let’s do some more morphing:

 dhh = Hubbit 'dhh'

Do we have more methods now?

 Hubbit.morph_methods
 # => ["blog", "blog=", "company", "company=", "email", "email=",
 #    "location", "location=" "name", "name=", "projects", "projects="]

So, a new company method has appeared:

 dhh.company #=> "37signals"

Morph making sample Active Record line via script_generate

Time to generate an Active Record model? Get a sample script line like this:

 Hubbit.script_generate
 # => "ruby script/destroy rspec_model Hubbit;
 #    ruby script/generate rspec_model Hubbit blog:string company:string
 #        email:string location:string name:string projects:string"

or specify the generator:

 Hubbit.script_generate :generator => 'model'
 # => "ruby script/destroy model Hubbit;
 #     ruby script/generate model Hubbit blog:string company:string
 #         email:string location:string name:string projects:string"

You’ll have to edit this as it currently sets all data types to be string, and doesn’t understand associations.

Morph setting hash of attributes via morph

 class Order; include Morph; end
 order = Order.new

How about adding a hash of attribute values?

 order.morph :drink => 'tea', :spoons_of_sugar => 2, :milk => 'prefer soya thanks'

Looks like we got ‘em:

 order.drink  # => "tea"
 order.spoons_of_sugar  # => 2
 order.milk  # => "prefer soya thanks"

Morph obtaining hash of attributes via morph_attributes

Create an item:

 class Item; include Morph; end
 item = Item.new
 item.morph :name => 'spinach', :cost => 0.50

Now an order:

 class Order; include Morph; end
 order = Order.new
 order.no = 123
 order.items = [item]

Want to retrieve all that as a nested hash of values? No problem:

 order.morph_attributes
 # => {:items=>[{:name=>"spinach", :cost=>0.5}], :no=>123}

Last bits

See examples/ directory for some example code. See LICENSE for the terms of this software.

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