AttributeMapper provides a transparent interface for mapping symbolic representations to a column in the database of a more primitive type. For example, rather than hardcoding values like 1 or 2 to represent that a Ticket model's status column is "open" or "closed" you would create the following mapping:
class Ticket < ActiveRecord::Base
include AttributeMapper
map_attribute :status, :to => {:open => 1, :closed => 2}
end
You can now get and set the status column symbolically:
ticket.status = :open
ticket.status # => :open
Internally, the integer 1 will be stored in the database.
An authoritative list of the mapping is available as a class method which is the pluralized version of the attribute:
Ticket.statuses # => {:open => 1, :closed => 2}
The primitive values of the mapping can always be used to assign the column, though the getter for the attribute will always return the higher level symbolic representation.
ticket.status = 1
ticket.status # => :open
Marcel Molina, Jr., Bruce Williams and Adam Keys
Released under the MIT License (see LICENSE).