If you want to create a quick key/value store in your application where the values relate to an existing model, this is very helpful.
Add the gem to the Gemfile
gem "nifty-key-value-store", require: "nifty/key_value_store"
You'll need to create the database table and then, once added, you can specify what objects you want to store.
$ rails generate nifty:key_value_store:migration
$ rake db:migrate
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
key_value_store :settings
key_value_store :other_settings
end
person = Person.new
person.settings = {:colour => 'red', :fruit => 'apple'}
person.other_settings_json = "{"hello":"world"}"
person.save
person = Person.find(person.id)
person.settings #=> {'colour' => 'red', 'fruit' => 'apple'}
person.settings_json #=> "{'color':'red', 'fruit':'apple'}"A few points to note about this:
- All values are stored as strings in the database
- All keys are stored as strings and returned as strings in their hash