active_access¶ ↑

The ActiveAccess mixin makes it easy to limit access to ActiveModel and ActiveRecord attributes by declaring generated attribute accessor methods private.

Mixing the ActiveAcess::AttributeMethods into a class that mixes in ActiveModel::AttributeMethods or is derived from ActiveRecord::Base adds the attr_private and attr_private_writer macros.

These macros change the behavior of define_attribute_methods to declare generated attribute accessors private: attr_private declares all accessors for an attribute private; attr_private_writer declares only writer methods private.

ActiveAccess recognizes the following attribute reader method name patterns:

#name
#name?
#name_before_type_cast
#name_changed?
#name_change
#name_was
#_name

ActiveAccess recognizes the following attribute writer method name patterns:

#name=
#name_will_change
#reset_name!

class Widget < ActiveRecord::Base

  include ActiveAccess::AttributeMethods

  attr_private_writer :read_me

  attr_private :secret

end

Widget.new.respond_to? :read_me  # => true
Widget.new.read_me = "new value" # raises NoMethodError

Widget.new.respond_to? :secret   # => false
Widget.new.secret = "new value"  # raises NoMethodError

ActiveAccess only restricts access to named attribute accessors. Unnamed accessors such as ActiveRecord read_attribute and write_attribute as well as hash-style access are not restricted. Attribute aliases are also unrestricted.

ActiveRecord does not allow attributes with private writers to be initialized (i.e. passed as parameters to new) or mass-assigned (passed as parameters to assign_attributes or attributes=).

Copyright © 2012 Riley Lynch, Teleological Software, LLC. See LICENSE.txt for further details.