ActiveImporter


Define importers that load tabular data from spreadsheets or CSV files into any ActiveRecord-like ORM.

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'active_importer'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install active_importer

Define classes that you instruct on how to import data into data models.

class EmployeeImporter < ActiveImporter::Base
  imports Employee

  column 'First name', :first_name
  column 'Last name', :last_name
  column 'Department', :department do |department_name|
    Department.find_by(name: department_name)
  end
end

The importer defines what data model it imports data into, and how columns in the data source map to fields in the model. Also, by providing a block, the source value can be processed before being stored, as shown with the 'Department' column in the example above.

Once defined, importers can be invoked to import a given data file.

EmployeeImporter.import('/path/to/file.xls')

The data file is expected to contain columns with titles corresponding to the columns declared. Any extra columns are ignored. Any errors while processing the data file does not interrupt the whole process. Instead, errors are notified via some callbacks defined in the importer (see below).

For mote detailed information about the different aspects of importing data with active_importer, refer to the following sections in the wiki.

• Understanding how spreadsheets are parsed
• Mapping columns to attributes

• Custom data processing
• Helper methods
• File extension and supported formats
• Passing custom parameters
• Events and callbacks
• Selecting the model instance to import into (Update instead of create)
• Error handling
• Selecting the sheet to get data from
• Skipping rows

• Aborting the import process
• Transactional importers

Contributions are welcome! Take a look at our contributions guide for details.