Accessorize¶ ↑

Log all data access for your ActiveRecord models

Sometimes you need to keep rigid logs of who created, updated and even accessed the data in your database. Accessorize simplifies the process by allowing you to register observers for your models declaratively in one place. Each ovbserver will save access events to a single table “accessors” which stores the user that is accessing the record, the type of access (create, update, view, destroy) and the id of the record that was accessed.

Because accessorize record view level access events it can become very slow. You should only enable it for heavily controlled models. For example, if you have an index page that lists all patients in your database in a table, a new access event is created for every row. Think of the children.

First you need to install the gem (hosted on Gemcutter):

sudo gem install accessorize

Then you need to run the generator in your project:

/my/cool/rails/app $ accessorize

Then you need to edit the accessorize.rb file in config/initializers. You can control the automatic accessor and meta methods:

Accessorize.configure do |config|
  config.accessor = :current_user # default
  config.meta = :current_meta # default
end

Accessorize uses these settings when your model is accessed from a controller. When logging the “accessor_id”, it will by default grab the id current_user from the application controller. You can change which method is called and replace it with something custom.

The meta information has no specific use. It could be used to store the users IP address, the current action or route, or really anything you like. Again, accessorize will by default try to access the current_meta method on the application controller. You can define this method or point it to something else. If the method does not exist, the meta attribute will be nil for the record.

If you are not saving from a controller you can simply set these values to whatever you like:

Accessorize::Extension.accessor = 101
SomeAccessorizedModel.first
Accessorize::Accessor.last.accessor 
# => 101

• Fork the project.

• Make your feature addition or bug fix.

• Add tests for it. This is important so I don’t break it in a future version unintentionally.

• Commit, do not mess with rakefile, version, or history. (if you want to have your own version, that is fine but bump version in a commit by itself I can ignore when I pull)

• Send me a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.

Copyright © 2010 Jeff Rafter. See LICENSE for details.