Money
=====

acts_as_money is a fairly trivial plugin that makes it easier to work with the money gem. It's available in Rubygems - just 'gem install acts_as_money'.

  class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
    acts_as_money
    money :price
  end
  
This assumes that there are 2 columns in the database, cents (integer) and currency (string).  These fields can be changed by setting the :cents and :currency options.  To use the default currency, you can simple set :currency to false

  class Room < ActiveRecord::Base
    acts_as_money
    money :rate, :cents => :rate_in_cents, :currency => :rate_currency
    money :discount, :cents => :discount_in_cents, :currency => false
  end

By default, your money field will default to a value of 0. If you require it to default to nil, you may set the :allow_nil option:

  class Meal < ActiveRecord::Base
    acts_as_money  
    money :bill, :allow_nil => true
  end

  m = Meal.new
  m.bill #returns nil

  r = Room.new
  r.rate      #returns <Money:0x24fd53a6 @currency="USD", @cents=0>

acts_as_money allows you to pass a String, Fixnum, Float or Money object as a parameter to the setter, and it will call #to_money to convert it to a Money object.  This makes it convenient for using money fields in forms.

  r = Room.new :rate => "100.00"
  r.rate                            # returns <Money:0x249ef9c @currency="USD", @cents=10000>