acts_as_role¶ ↑

This is a minimalist implementation of roles using a database column to store the roles in plain text. You can specify the role values and a default role that should be used when model is initialized.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_role :role, :values = %w(admin owner user), :default => :user
end

Use role field to store the user roles.

user = User.new
user.role => "user"
user.has_role?(:user) => true

Test roles using has_#{role_column.singularize}? or has_#{role_column.pluralize}?

user.has_roles?(:user, :admin) => false

user.add_roles :owner
user.has_roles?(:user, :owner) => true

Roles are stored using plain text

user.roles => "user_owner"

user.remove_roles(:user)
user.has_role?(:user) => false
user.roles => "owner"

Validation - internally there is a roles validator, you can add a :message to customize the validation message

user.add_roles :not_specified
user.valid? => false
user.errors[:roles] => "contains an invalid role"

You can use a different field with different syntax

class Access < ActiveRecord::Base  
  acts_as_role :flag, :values => %w(owner manager employee), :message => "invalid role"
end

access = Access.new
access.flag => "" (no default role specified)
access.add_flags(:owner)
access.has_flag?(:owner) => true
access.add_flags(:manager)
access.has_flags?(:manager, :owner) => true
access.flag => manager_owner
access.add_flags :invalid
access.valid? => false
access.errors[:flag] => "invalid role"

Also you can use is_role to query a custom role

user = User.new
user.is_user? => true
user.is_admin? => false

access = Access.new
access.is_owner? => false
access.is_manager? => false
access.add_roles :manager
access.is_manager? => true

• Check out the latest master to make sure the feature hasn’t been implemented or the bug hasn’t been fixed yet

• Check out the issue tracker to make sure someone already hasn’t requested it and/or contributed it

• Fork the project

• Start a feature/bugfix branch

• Commit and push until you are happy with your contribution

• Make sure to add tests for it. This is important so I don’t break it in a future version unintentionally.

• Please try not to mess with the Rakefile, version, or history. If you want to have your own version, or is otherwise necessary, that is fine, but please isolate to its own commit so I can cherry-pick around it.

Copyright © 2011 Carlos Segura. See LICENSE.txt for further details.