CloneUtil

This gem helps us to copy the ActiveRecord objects recursively

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'clone_util'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install clone_util

Usage

Call deep_clone with the parent object which should copy all its children

Ex: School.first.deep_clone

Add deep_clone_options in the models which needs to be copied with the parent

Ex: deep_clone_options(:associations => [:departments, :laboratories])

Parameters passed with deep_clone_options:

:associations => This contains the list of association(children) which needs to be cloned.
Ex: deep_clone_options(:associations => [:departments])


:unequal_attributes => This contains the column names should not be same as parent(Ex: xx column in child table will not be same as xx column in parent table so this column in child table will set to nil)
Ex: deep_clone_options(::unequal_attributes => [:xx])


:equivalent_associations => If child table has 2 foreign keys and one will be automatically updated with associations array mentioned in parent class and to update the other foreign key we need this option in child class.
Ex: deep_clone_options(:equivalent_associations => [:laboratory_id])


:parent_id_attr => This contains the parent column of the child table

Example:

Models:

class School < ActiveRecord::Base
    has_many :laboratories
    has_many :departments
    deep_clone_options(:associations => [:departments, :laboratories])
end


class Laboratory < ActiveRecord::Base
    belongs_to :school
    belongs_to :department
    deep_clone_options(:equivalent_associations => [:department]  )
end


class Department < ActiveRecord::Base
    belongs_to :school
    has_many :students
    deep_clone_options(:associations => [:students])
end


class Student < ActiveRecord::Base
    belongs_to :department
end

Migrations:

class CreateSchools < ActiveRecord::Migration
    def change
        create_table :schools do |t|
            t.string :name
            t.timestamps null: false
        end
    end
end


class CreateLaboratories < ActiveRecord::Migration
    def change
        create_table :laboratories do |t|
            t.string :name
            t.integer :department_id
            t.integer :school_id
            t.timestamps null: false
        end
    end
end


class CreateDepartments < ActiveRecord::Migration
    def change
        create_table :departments do |t|
            t.string :name
            t.integer :school_id
            t.timestamps null: false
        end
    end
end


class CreateStudents < ActiveRecord::Migration
    def change
        create_table :students do |t|
            t.string :name
            t.integer :age
            t.integer :department_id
            t.timestamps null: false
       end
    end
end

Seed File:

School.create([{ name: 'school1'}])
Department.create([{ name: 'department1', :school_id => 1 }])
Laboratory.create([{ name: 'Lab1', :school_id => 1, :department_id => 1 }, { name: 'Lab2', :school_id => 1, :department_id => 1 }])
Student.create([{ name: 'student1', :department_id => 1 }, { name: 'student2', :department_id => 1 }])

Include the models and run the above migrations. Finally below command gives you the clone result:

School.first.deep_clone

Sample Application

Here we can find application which uses clone_util gem for copying ActiveRecord objects recursively

https://github.com/srijithc/sample_clone_util