Annotate (aka AnnotateModels)¶ ↑

Add a comment summarizing the current schema to the top or bottom of each of your…

• ActiveRecord models

• Fixture files

• Tests and Specs

• Object Daddy exemplars

• Machinist blueprints

• Fabrication fabricators

• Thoughtbot’s factory_girl factories, i.e. the (spec|test)/factories/<model>_factory.rb files

• routes.rb file

The schema comment looks like this:

# == Schema Info
#
# Table name: line_items
#
#  id                  :integer(11)    not null, primary key
#  quantity            :integer(11)    not null
#  product_id          :integer(11)    not null
#  unit_price          :float
#  order_id            :integer(11)
#

 class LineItem < ActiveRecord::Base
   belongs_to :product
  . . .

It also annotates geometrical columns, geom type and srid, when using SpatialAdapter or PostgisAdapter:

# == Schema Info
#
# Table name: trips
#
#  local           :geometry        point, 4326
#  path            :geometry        line_string, 4326

Also, if you pass the -r option, it’ll annotate routes.rb with the output of “rake routes”.

INSTALL¶ ↑

Into Gemfile from rubygems.org:

gem 'annotate', ">=2.5.0.pre1"

Into Gemfile from Github:

gem 'annotate', :git => 'git://github.com/ctran/annotate_models.git'

Into environment gems From rubygems.org:

gem install annotate

Into environment gems from Github checkout:

git clone git://github.com/ctran/annotate_models.git annotate_models
cd annotate_models
rake build
gem install pkg/annotate-*.gem

USAGE¶ ↑

(If you used the Gemfile install, prefix the below commands with ‘bundle exec`.)

To annotate all your models, tests, fixtures, etc.:

cd /path/to/app
annotate

To annotate your models and tests:

annotate --exclude fixtures

To annotate just your models:

annotate --exclude tests,fixtures

To annotate routes.rb:

annotate -r

To remove annotations:

annotate -d

To automatically annotate after running ‘rake db:migrate’, ensure you’ve added annotate_models to your Rails project’s Gemfile, and run this:

rails g annotate_models:install

This will produce a .rake file that will ensure annotation happens after migration (but only in development mode), and provide configuration options you can use to tailor the output.

If you want to always skip annotations on a particular model, add this string anywhere in the file:

# -*- SkipSchemaAnnotations

OPTIONS¶ ↑

Usage: annotate_models [options] [model_file]*
    -d, --delete                     Remove annotations from all model files
    -p, --position [before|after]    Place the annotations at the top (before) or the bottom (after) of the model file
    -r, --routes                     Annotate routes.rb with the output of 'rake routes'
    -v, --version                    Show the current version of this gem
    -m, --show-migration             Include the migration version number in the annotation
    -i, --show-indexes               List the indexes for the table in the annotation
    -s, --simple-indexes             Include information about indexes inline with the relevant column
        --model-dir dir              Annotate model files stored in dir rather than app/models
        --ignore-model-subdirs       Ignore sub-directories of the models directory.
    -R, --require path               Additional files to require before loading models
    -e [tests,fixtures]              Skip annotation of fixtures/factories/test files
        --exclude
        --sort                        Sort by alphabetical order rather than column creation order

SORTING¶ ↑

By default, columns will be sorted in database order (i.e. the order in which migrations were run).

If you prefer to sort alphabetically so that the results of annotation are consistent regardless of what order migrations are executed in, use –sort.

WARNING¶ ↑

Note that this code will blow away the initial/final comment block in your models if it looks like it was previously added by annotate models, so you don’t want to add additional text to an automatically created comment block.

BACK UP YOUR MODELS BEFORE USING THIS TOOL!

LINKS¶ ↑

• Factory Girl: github.com/thoughtbot/factory_girl

• Object Daddy: github.com/flogic/object_daddy

• Machinist: github.com/notahat/machinist

• Fabrication: github.com/paulelliott/fabrication

• SpatialAdapter: github.com/pdeffendol/spatial_adapter

• PostgisAdapter: github.com/nofxx/postgis_adapter

LICENSE:¶ ↑

Released under the same license as Ruby. No Support. No Warranty.

AUTHORS:¶ ↑

• Original code by: Dave Thomas – Pragmatic Programmers, LLC <agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/annotate_models>

• Overhauled by: Alex Chaffee <alexch.github.com> alex@stinky.com

• Gemmed by: Cuong Tran <github.com/ctran> ctran@pragmaquest.com

• Maintained by: Alex Chaffee and Cuong Tran

• Homepage: github.com/ctran/annotate_models

With help from:

• Jack Danger - github.com/JackDanger

• Michael Bumann - github.com/bumi

• Henrik Nyh - github.com/henrik

• Marcos Piccinini - github.com/nofxx

• Neal Clark - github.com/nclark

• Jacqui Maher - github.com/jacqui

• Nick Plante - github.com/zapnap - blog.zerosum.org

• Pedro Visintin - github.com/peterpunk - www.pedrovisintin.com

• Bob Potter - github.com/bpot

• Gavin Montague - github.com/govan

• Alexander Semyonov - github.com/rotuka

• Nathan Brazil - github.com/bitaxis

• Ian Duggan github.com/ijcd

• Jon Frisby github.com/mrjoy

and many others that I may have missed to add.