A rails plugin to store a collection of boolean attributes in a single ActiveRecord column as a bit field.
This plugin lets you use a single integer column in an ActiveRecord model to store a collection of boolean attributes (flags). Each flag can be used almost in the same way you would use any boolean attribute on an ActiveRecord object.
The benefits:
-
No migrations needed for new boolean attributes. This helps a lot if you have very large db-tables where you want to avoid ALTER TABLE whenever possible.
-
Only the one integer column needs to be indexed.
Using FlagShihTzu, you can add new boolean attributes whenever you want, without needing any migration. Just add a new flag to the has_flags call.
And just in case you are wondering what “Shih Tzu” means: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shih_Tzu
FlagShihTzu assumes that your ActiveRecord model already has an integer field to store the flags, which should be defined to not allow NULL values and should have a default value of 0 (which means all flags are initially set to false).
The plugin has been tested with Rails versions from 2.1 to 2.3 and MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite3 databases.
cd path/to/your/rails-project ./script/plugin install git://github.com/xing/flag_shih_tzu.git
class Spaceship < ActiveRecord::Base include FlagShihTzu has_flags 1 => :warpdrive, 2 => :shields, 3 => :electrolytes end
has_flags takes a hash. The keys must be positive integers and represent the position of the bit being used to enable or disable the flag. The keys must not be changed once in use, or you will get wrong results. That is why the plugin forces you to set them explicitly. The values are symbols for the flags being created.
As said, FlagShihTzu uses a single integer column to store the values for all the defined flags as a bit field.
The bit position of a flag corresponds to the given key.
This way, we can use bit operators on the stored integer value to set, unset and check individual flags.
+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+
| | | | | | | |
Bit position | 3 | 2 | 1 | | 3 | 2 | 1 |
(flag key) | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+
| | | | | | | |
Bit value | 4 | 2 | 1 | | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+
| e | s | w | | e | s | w |
| l | h | a | | l | h | a |
| e | i | r | | e | i | r |
| c | e | p | | c | e | p |
| t | l | d | | t | l | d |
| r | d | r | | r | d | r |
| o | s | i | | o | s | i |
| l | | v | | l | | v |
| y | | e | | y | | e |
| t | | | | t | | |
| e | | | | e | | |
| s | | | | s | | |
+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+
| 1 | 1 | 0 | = 4 + 2 = 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 | = 4 + 1 = 5
+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+
Read more about bit fields here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_field
The default column name to store the flags is ‘flags’, but you can provide a custom column name using the :column option:
has_flags(1 => :warpdrive, :column => 'bits')
Calling has_flags as shown above creates the following instance methods on Spaceship:
Spaceship#warpdrive Spaceship#warpdrive? Spaceship#warpdrive= Spaceship#shields Spaceship#shields? Spaceship#shields= Spaceship#electrolytes Spaceship#electrolytes? Spaceship#electrolytes=
The following named scopes become available:
Spaceship.warpdrive # :conditions => "(spaceships.flags & 1 = 1)" Spaceship.not_warpdrive # :conditions => "(spaceships.flags & 1 = 0)" Spaceship.shields # :conditions => "(spaceships.flags & 2 = 2)" Spaceship.not_shields # :conditions => "(spaceships.flags & 2 = 0)" Spaceship.electrolytes # :conditions => "(spaceships.flags & 4 = 4)" Spaceship.not_electrolytes # :conditions => "(spaceships.flags & 4 = 0)"
If you do not want the named scopes to be defined, set the :named_scopes option to false when calling has_flags:
has_flags(1 => :warpdrive, 2 => :shields, 3 => :electrolytes, :named_scopes => false)
The following class methods may support you when manually building ActiveRecord conditions:
Spaceship.warpdrive_condition # "(spaceships.flags & 1 = 1)" Spaceship.not_warpdrive_condition # "(spaceships.flags & 1 = 0)" Spaceship.shields_condition # "(spaceships.flags & 2 = 2)" Spaceship.not_shields_condition # "(spaceships.flags & 2 = 0)" Spaceship.electrolytes_condition # "(spaceships.flags & 4 = 4)" Spaceship.not_electrolytes_condition # "(spaceships.flags & 4 = 0)"
enterprise = Spaceship.new enterprise.warpdrive = true enterprise.shields = true enterprise.electrolytes = false enterprise.save if enterprise.shields? ... end Spaceship.warpdrive.find(:all) Spaceship.not_electrolytes.count ...
-
Modify
test/database.ymlto fit your test environment. -
If needed, create the test database you configured in
test/database.yml.
Then you can run
DB=mysql|postgres|sqlite3 rake test:plugins PLUGIN=flag_shih_tzu
from your Rails project root or
DB=mysql|postgres|sqlite3 rake
from vendor/plugins/flag_shih_tzu.
Patryk Peszko, Sebastian Roebke, David Anderson and Tim Payton
Please find out more about our work in our tech blog.
TobiTobes, Martin Stannard, Ladislav Martincik, Peter Boling, Thorsten Boettger
The MIT License
Copyright © 2009 XING AG
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.