AddSymbolicNames

ActiveRecord plugin for creating constants from a domain table

You have foreign keys in your database that are actually constants.

In your Gemfile:

gem 'add_symbolic_names'

In your ActiveRecord model:

class SomeDomain < ActiveRecord::Base
  add_symbolic_names
end

The add_symbolic_names method takes an options hash with 3 possible values:

• symbolic_name_attrib - the name of the column/attribute to use when defining the constant name
• value_attrib - the name of the column/attribute to use for the value of the constant
• store - how to load the data

There are 2 data stores available

ActiveRecord is the default data store. It loads all records, iterating through and defining constants with a name of the symbolic_name_attrib option with a value of the value_attrib option.

…
add_symbolic_names store: :active_record, 
                   symbolic_name_attrib: :some_column, 
                   value_attrib: :another_column

Yaml store loads from your db/domain folder a yaml file with the pluralized, demodulized class name. (User => users.yml)

…
add_symbolic_names store: :yaml

Let's say you keep track of how you create users on your site. You have a user_creation_methods table that looks something like:

class UserCreationMethod < ActiveRecord::Base
  add_symbolic_names
end

You now have access to some namespaced constants:

• UserCreationMethod::EMAIL => 1
• UserCreationMethod::REGISTER => 2
• UserCreationMethod::IMPORT => 3

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :user_creation_method
  
  scope :imported, -> { where(user_creation_method_id: UserCreationMethod::IMPORT) }
end

bvandenbos actually wrote this 6+ years ago. We think this could be useful for others.