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 3.0 and MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite3 databases. It has been tested with ruby 1.9.2 (with Rails 3 only).
cd path/to/your/rails-project ./script/plugin install git://github.com/xing/flag_shih_tzu.git
Add following line to your Gemfile:
gem 'flag_shih_tzu', '= 0.1.0.pre'
Make sure to install gem with bundler:
bundle install
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.
The default column name to store the flags is ‘flags’, but you can provide a custom column name using the :column option. This allows you to use different columns for separate flags:
has_flags 1 => :warpdrive, 2 => :shields, 3 => :electrolytes, :column => 'features' has_flags 1 => :spock, 2 => :scott, 3 => :kirk, :column => 'crew'
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 in (1,3,5,7))" Spaceship.not_warpdrive # :conditions => "(spaceships.flags not in (1,3,5,7))" Spaceship.shields # :conditions => "(spaceships.flags in (2,3,6,7))" Spaceship.not_shields # :conditions => "(spaceships.flags not in (2,3,6,7))" Spaceship.electrolytes # :conditions => "(spaceships.flags in (4,5,6,7))" Spaceship.not_electrolytes # :conditions => "(spaceships.flags not in (4,5,6,7))"
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
In a Rails 3 application, FlagShihTzu will use scope internally to generate the scopes. The option on has_flags is still named :named_scopes however.
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 ...
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 following class methods may support you when manually building ActiveRecord conditions:
Spaceship.warpdrive_condition # "(spaceships.flags in (1,3,5,7))" Spaceship.not_warpdrive_condition # "(spaceships.flags not in (1,3,5,7))" Spaceship.shields_condition # "(spaceships.flags in (2,3,6,7))" Spaceship.not_shields_condition # "(spaceships.flags not in (2,3,6,7))" Spaceship.electrolytes_condition # "(spaceships.flags in (4,5,6,7))" Spaceship.not_electrolytes_condition # "(spaceships.flags not in (4,5,6,7))"
These methods also accept a :table_alias option that can be used when generating SQL that references the same table more than once:
Spaceship.shields_condition(:table_alias => 'evil_spaceships') # "(evil_spaceships.flags in (2,3,6,7))"
While the default way of building the SQL conditions uses an IN() list (as shown above), this approach will not work well for a high number of flags, as the value list for IN() grows.
For MySQL, depending on your MySQL settings, this can even hit the ‘max_allowed_packet’ limit with the generated query.
In this case, consider changing the flag query mode to :bit_operator instead of :in_list, like so:
has_flags 1 => :warpdrive, 2 => :shields, :flag_query_mode => :bit_operator
This will modify the generated condition and named_scope methods to use bit operators in the SQL instead of an IN() list:
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.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)"
The drawback is that due to the bit operator, this query can not use an index on the flags column.
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(Rails 3 only) Add
mysql2,pgandsqlite3gems to your Gemfile. -
Install flag_shih_tzu as plugin inside working Rails application.
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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, Daniel Jagszent, Thorsten Boettger, Darren Torpey, Joost Baaij and Musy Bite
The MIT License
Copyright © 2009 XING AG
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