The old mini_record-compat gem has been deprecated in favor of active_record_inline_schema.

Please use active_record_inline_schema or original mini_record instead of mini_record-compat.

MiniRecord is a micro extension for our ActiveRecord gem. With MiniRecord you can add the ability to create columns outside the default schema.rb, directly in your model in a similar way that should know in others projects like DataMapper, MongoMapper or MongoID.

My inspiration come from this handy project.

• Define columns/properties inside your model
• Perform migrations automatically
• Auto upgrade your schema, so if you know what you are doing you don't lost your existing data!
• Add, Remove, Change Columns; Add, Remove, Change indexes

What you need is to move/remove your db/schema.rb. This avoid conflicts.

Add to your Gemfile:

gem 'mini_record'

That's all!

Remember that inside properties you can use all migrations methods, see documentation

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  col :title_en, :title_jp
  col :description_en, :description_jp, :as => :text
  col :permalink, :index => true, :limit => 50
  col :comments_count, :as => :integer
  col :category, :as => :references, :index => true
end
Post.auto_upgrade!

Instead of :as => :my_type you can use :type => :my_type

Option :as or :type if not provided is :string by default, you can use all ActiveRecord types:

:primary_key, :string, :text, :integer, :float, :decimal, :datetime, :timestamp, :time, :date, :binary, :boolean
:references, :belongs_to, :polymorphic, :timestamp

You can provide others ActiveRecord options like:

:limit, :default, :null, :precision, :scale

# example
class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base
  col :title, :default => "MyTitle" # :as => :string is by default
  col :price, :as => :decimal, :scale => 8, :precision => 2
end

See ActiveRecord::TableDefinition for more details.

Finally, when you execute MyModel.auto_upgrade!, missing columns, indexes and tables will be created on the fly. Indexes and columns present in the db but not in your model schema will be deleted* also in your db.

MiniRecord as ActiveRecord support STI plus some goodness, see our specs for more details.

Super easy, open your model and just add it:

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  col :title
  col :body, :as => :text # <<- this
  col :permalink, :index => true
  col :comments_count, :as => :integer
  col :category, :as => :references, :index => true
end
Post.auto_upgrade!

So now when you invoke MyModel.auto_upgrade! you should see a SQL query like ALTER TABLE that mean that your existing records are happy and safe.

It's exactly the same, but the column will be really deleted without affect other columns.

It's not possible for us know when/what column you have renamed, but we can know if you changed the type so if you change t.string :name to t.text :name we are be able to perform an ALTER TABLE

In the same ways we manage columns MiniRecord will detect new indexes and indexes that needs to be removed. So when you perform MyModel.auto_upgrade! a SQL command like:

PRAGMA index_info('index_people_on_name')
CREATE INDEX "index_people_on_surname" ON "people" ("surname")

Note that writing it in DSL way you have same options as add_index so you are be able to write:

class Fox < ActiveRecord::Base
  col :foo, :index => true
  col :foo, :index => :custom_name
  col :foo, :index => [:foo, :bar]
  col :foo, :index => { :column => [:branch_id, :party_id], :unique => true, :name => 'by_branch_party' }
end

That is the same of:

class Fox < ActiveRecord::Base
  col :foo
  add_index :foo
  add_index :custom_name
  add_index [:foo, :bar]
  add_index [:branch_id, :party_id], :unique => true, :name => 'by_branch_party'
end

This software is not super well tested in a production project. Im stated to using it in two customer's projects without any problem.

• reduce the number of methods we add to ActiveRecord::Base objects

DAddYE, you can follow me on twitter @daddye or take a look at my site daddye.it

Copyright (C) 2011 Davide D'Agostino - @daddye

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