Schemattr - Schema-ish ActiveRecord attributes

Schemattr is an ActiveRecord extension that provides a helpful schema-less attribute DSL. It can be used to define a simple schema for a single attribute that can change over time without having to migrate existing data.

Let's say you have a User model, and that model has a simple concept of settings -- just one for now. It's a boolean named opted_in, and it means that the user is opted in to receive email updates. Sweet, we go add a migration for this setting and migrate. Ship it, we're done with that feature.

Ok, so now it's a year later and your project has grown a lot. You have over 4MM users, and in that year there's been a lot of business requirements that necessitated new settings for users. Each setting has been added ad hoc, as needed -- there's now three email lists, and users can opt in and out of each one independently.

This is where Schemattr comes in. Adding a new setting, or changing the name of an existing setting is non-trivial at this point of your projects life-cycle, and requires a multi-step migration. You'll need to add the column (don't set a default for that column, because that locks the table!), then you'll need to update each record in batches, once complete you'll set a default, and finally you'll want to add a null constraint. This can become a hassle, and introduces complexity to your deployments.

Schemattr allows you to move all of those settings into a single JSON (or similarly serialized) column. It can behave as though the column is defined on the record itself through delegation, allows providing overrides for getter/setter methods, can keep a real column synced with one if its fields, and more.

If you're using Schemattr and want to add a new setting field, it's as simple as adding a new field to the attribute schema and setting a default right there in the code. No migrations, no hassles, easy deployment.

Add this line to your Gemfile:

gem "schemattr"

Or install the latest version with RubyGems:

gem install schemattr

Source code can be downloaded as part of the project on GitHub:

• https://github.com/jejacks0n/schemattr

In the examples we assume there's already a User model and table.

First, let's create a migration to add your schema-less attribute. In postgres you can use a JSON column. We use the postgres JSON type as our example because the JSON type allows queries and indexing, and hstore does annoying things to booleans. We don't need to set our default value to an empty object because Schemattr handles that for us.

Note: If you're using a different database provider, like sqlite3 for instance, you can use a text column and tell ActiveRecord to serialize that column (e.g. serialize :settings in your model). Though, you won't be able to easily query in these cases so consider your options.

class AddSettingsToUsers < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    add_column :users, :settings, :json
  end
end

Schemattr hooks into ActiveRecord and provides the attribute_schema method on any model that inherits from ActiveRecord. This method provides a simple DSL that allows you to define the schema for the attribute. You can define various fields, specify their types, defaults if needed, and additional options.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  attribute_schema :settings do
    boolean :opted_in, default: true
    boolean :email_list_advanced, default: false
    boolean :email_list_expert, default: false
  end
end

Notice that we've done nothing else, but we already have a working version of what we want. It's shippable.

user = User.new
user.settings.opted_in? # => true
user.settings.email_group_advanced? # => false
user.settings.email_group_expert? # => false

If we save the user at this point, these settings will be persisted. We can also make changes to them at this point, and when they're persisted they'll include whatever we've changed them to be. If we don't save the user, that's ok too -- they'll just be the defaults if we ever ask again.

The various field types are outlined below. When you define a string field for instance, the value will be coerced into a string at the time that it's set.

You can additionally define your own types using field :foo, :custom_type and there will no coercion at the time the field is set -- this is intended for when you need something that doesn't care what type it is. This generally makes it harder to use in forms however.

If you don't like the idea of having to access these attributes at user.settings you can specify that you'd like them delegated. This adds delegation of the methods that exist on settings to the User instances.

attribute_schema :settings, delegated: true do
  field :opted_in, :boolean, default: true
end

user = User.new
user.opted_in = false
user.settings.opted_in? # => false
user.opted_in? # => false

By default, Schemattr doesn't allow arbitrary fields to be added, but it supports it. When strict mode is disabled, it allows any arbitrary field to be set or asked for.

Note: When delegated and strict mode is disabled, you cannot set arbitrary fields on the model directly and must access them through the attribute that you've defined -- in our case, it's settings.

attribute_schema :settings, delegated: true, strict: false do
  field :opted_in, :boolean, default: true
end

user = User.new
user.settings.foo # => nil
user.settings.foo = "bar"
user.settings.foo # => "bar"
user.foo # => NoMethodError

Schemattr provides the ability to specify your own attribute class. By doing so you can provide your own getters and setters and do more complex logic. In this example we're providing the inverse of opted_in with an opted_out psuedo field.

class UserSettings < Schemattr::Attribute
  def opted_out
    !self[:opted_in]
  end
  alias_method :opted_out, :opted_out?

  def opted_out=(val)
    self.opted_in = !val
  end
end

attribute_schema :settings, class: UserSettings do
  field :opted_in, :boolean, default: true
end

user = User.new
user.settings.opted_out? # => false
user.settings.opted_in? # => true
user.settings.opted_out = true
user.settings.opted_in? # => false

Our custom opted_out psuedo field won't be persisted, because it's not a defined field and is just an accessor for an existing field that is persisted (opted_in).

When overriding the attribute class with your own, you can provide your own custom getters and setters as well. These will not be overridden by whatever Schemattr thinks they should do. Take this example, where when someone turns on or off a setting we want to subscribe/unsubscribe them to an email list via a third party.

class UserSettings < Schemattr::Attribute
  def opted_in=(val)
    if val
      SubscribeEmail.perform_async(model.email)
    else
      UnsubscribeEmail.perform_async(model.email)
    end
    # there is no super, so you must set it manually.
    self[:opted_in] = val
  end
end

Note: This is not a real world scenario but serves our purposes of describing an example.

Schemattr makes it easy to rename fields as well. Let's say you've got a field named opted_in, as the examples have shown thus far. But you've added new email lists, and you think opted_in is too vague. Like, opted in for what?

We can create a new field that is correctly named, and specify what attribute we want to pull the value from.

attribute_schema :settings do
  # field :opted_in, :boolean, default: true
  field :email_list_beginner, :boolean, value_from: :opted_in, default: true
end

Specifying the value_from: :opted_in option will tell Schemattr to look for the value that may have already been defined in opted_in before the rename. This allows for slow migrations, but you can also write a migration to ensure this happens quickly.

This previously used the keyword from, and this keyword is deprecated.

There's a down side to keeping some things internal to this settings attribute. You can query JSON types in postgres, but it may not be optimal given your indexing strategy. Schemattr provides a mechanism to keep an attribute in sync, but it's important to understand it and handle it with care.

Let's say we want to be able to be able to easily query users who have opted in. We can add the opted_in column to (or leave it, as the case may be) on the users table.

attribute_schema :settings do
  field :email_list_beginner, :boolean, default: true, sync: :opted_in
end

user = User.new
user.settings.email_list_beginner = false
user.read_attribute(:opted_in) # => false
user.save!
User.where(opted_in: false) # => user

By adding the sync option to the field, Schemattr will try to keep that attribute in sync. There are some caveats that can lead to confusion however.

First, when you do this, it forces delegation of user.opted_in to user.settings.opted_in -- this is to make keeping things in sync easier. The second issue can arise is when this attribute is set directly in the database -- which means using things like user.update_column(:opted_in, false), and User.update_all(opted_in: false) will allow things to get out of sync.

This has come up a little bit, and so it's worth documenting -- though it has very little to do with Schemattr. When you have a JSON column in postgres, you can query values from within that column in various ways.

The documentation can be a little hard to grok, so these are the common scenarios that we've used.

User.where("(settings->>'opted_in')::boolean") # boolean query
User.where("settings->>'string_value' = ?", "some string") # string query

This project is released under the MIT license:

• https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

Copyright 2023 jejacks0n