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data/guides/source/active_model_basics.textile

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+h2. Active Model Basics
+
+This guide should provide you with all you need to get started using model classes. Active Model allow for Action Pack helpers to interact with non-ActiveRecord models. Active Model also helps building custom ORMs for use outside of the Rails framework.
+
+endprologue.
+
+WARNING. This Guide is based on Rails 3.0. Some of the code shown here will not work in earlier versions of Rails.
+
+h3. Introduction
+
+Active Model is a library containing various modules used in developing frameworks that need to interact with the Rails Action Pack library. Active Model provides a known set of interfaces for usage in classes. Some of modules are explained below -  
+
+h4. AttributeMethods
+
+AttributeMethods module can add custom prefixes and suffixes on methods of a class. It is used by defining the prefixes and suffixes, which methods on the object will use them.
+
+<ruby>
+class Person
+  include ActiveModel::AttributeMethods
+
+  attribute_method_prefix 'reset_'
+  attribute_method_suffix '_highest?'
+  define_attribute_methods ['age']
+
+  attr_accessor :age
+
+private
+  def reset_attribute(attribute)
+    send("#{attribute}=", 0)
+  end
+
+  def attribute_highest?(attribute)
+    send(attribute) > 100 ? true : false
+  end
+  
+end
+
+person = Person.new
+person.age = 110
+person.age_highest?  # true
+person.reset_age     # 0
+person.age_highest?  # false 
+
+</ruby>
+
+h4. Callbacks
+
+Callbacks gives Active Record style callbacks. This provides the ability to define the callbacks and those will run at appropriate time. After defining a callbacks you can wrap with before, after and around custom methods.
+
+<ruby>
+class Person
+  extend ActiveModel::Callbacks
+
+  define_model_callbacks :update
+
+  before_update :reset_me
+
+  def update
+    _run_update_callbacks do
+      # This will call when we are trying to call update on object.
+    end
+  end
+
+  def reset_me
+    # This method will call when you are calling update on object as a before_update callback as defined.
+  end
+end
+</ruby>
+
+h4. Conversion
+
+If a class defines persisted? and id methods then you can include Conversion module in that class and you can able to call Rails conversion methods to objects of that class.
+
+<ruby>
+class Person
+  include ActiveModel::Conversion
+
+  def persisted?
+    false
+  end
+
+  def id
+    nil
+  end
+end
+
+person = Person.new
+person.to_model == person  #=> true
+person.to_key              #=> nil
+person.to_param            #=> nil
+</ruby>
+
+h4. Dirty
+
+An object becomes dirty when an object is gone through one or more changes to its attributes and not yet saved. This gives the ability to check whether an object has been changed or not. It also has attribute based accessor methods. Lets consider a Person class with attributes first_name and last_name
+
+<ruby>
+require 'rubygems'
+require 'active_model'
+
+class Person
+  include ActiveModel::Dirty
+  define_attribute_methods [:first_name, :last_name]
+
+  def first_name
+    @first_name
+  end
+
+  def first_name=(value)
+    first_name_will_change!
+    @first_name = value
+  end
+
+  def last_name
+    @last_name
+  end
+
+  def last_name=(value)
+    last_name_will_change!
+    @last_name = value
+  end
+
+  def save
+    @previously_changed = changes
+  end
+
+end
+</ruby>
+
+h5. Querying object directly for its list of all changed attributes.
+
+<ruby>
+person = Person.new
+person.first_name = "First Name"
+
+person.first_name #=> "First Name"
+person.first_name = "First Name Changed"
+
+person.changed? #=> true
+
+#returns an list of fields arry which all has been changed before saved.
+person.changed #=> ["first_name"]
+
+#returns a hash of the fields that have changed with their original values.
+person.changed_attributes #=> {"first_name" => "First Name Changed"}
+
+#returns a hash of changes, with the attribute names as the keys, and the values will be an array of the old and new value for that field.
+person.changes #=> {"first_name" => ["First Name","First Name Changed"]}
+</ruby>
+
+h5. Attribute based accessor methods
+
+Track whether the particular attribute has been changed or not.
+
+<ruby>
+#attr_name_changed?
+person.first_name #=> "First Name"
+
+#assign some other value to first_name attribute
+person.first_name = "First Name 1"
+
+person.first_name_changed? #=> true
+</ruby>
+
+Track what was the previous value of the attribute.
+
+<ruby>
+#attr_name_was accessor
+person.first_name_was  #=> "First Name"
+</ruby>
+
+Track  both previous and current value of the changed attribute. Returns an array if changed else returns nil
+
+<ruby>
+#attr_name_change
+person.first_name_change #=> ["First Name", "First Name 1"]
+person.last_name_change #=> nil
+</ruby>
+
+h4. Validations
+
+Validations module adds the ability to class objects to validate them in Active Record style.
+
+<ruby>
+class Person
+  include ActiveModel::Validations
+
+  attr_accessor :name, :email, :token
+  
+  validates :name, :presence => true
+  validates_format_of :email, :with => /^([^\s]+)((?:[-a-z0-9]\.)[a-z]{2,})$/i  
+  validates! :token, :presence => true
+  
+end
+
+person = Person.new(:token => "2b1f325")
+person.valid?                        #=> false
+person.name  = 'vishnu'
+person.email  = 'me'
+person.valid?                        #=> false
+person.email = 'me@vishnuatrai.com'
+person.valid?                        #=> true
+person.token = nil
+person.valid?                        #=> raises ActiveModel::StrictValidationFailed
+</ruby>

data/guides/source/active_record_basics.textile

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+h2. Active Record Basics
+
+This guide is an introduction to Active Record. After reading this guide we hope that you'll learn:
+
+* What Object Relational Mapping and Active Record are and how they are used in Rails
+* How Active Record fits into the Model-View-Controller paradigm
+* How to use Active Record models to manipulate data stored in a relational database
+* Active Record schema naming conventions
+* The concepts of database migrations, validations and callbacks
+
+endprologue.
+
+h3. What is Active Record?
+
+Active Record is the M in "MVC":getting_started.html#the-mvc-architecture - the model - which is the layer of the system responsible for representing business data and logic. Active Record facilitates the creation and use of business objects whose data requires persistent storage to a database. It is an implementation of the Active Record pattern which itself is a description of an Object Relational Mapping system.
+
+h4. The Active Record Pattern
+
+Active Record was described by Martin Fowler in his book _Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture_. In Active Record, objects carry both persistent data and behavior which operates on that data. Active Record takes the opinion that ensuring data access logic is part of the object will educate users of that object on how to write to and read from the database.
+
+h4. Object Relational Mapping
+
+Object-Relational Mapping, commonly referred to as its abbreviation ORM, is a technique that connects the rich objects of an application to tables in a relational database management system. Using ORM, the properties and relationships of the objects in an application can be easily stored and retrieved from a database without writing SQL statements directly and with less overall database access code.
+
+h4. Active Record as an ORM Framework
+
+Active Record gives us several mechanisms, the most important being the ability to:
+
+* Represent models and their data
+* Represent associations between these models
+* Represent inheritance hierarchies through related models
+* Validate models before they get persisted to the database
+* Perform database operations in an object-oriented fashion.
+
+h3. Convention over Configuration in Active Record
+
+When writing applications using other programming languages or frameworks, it may be necessary to write a lot of configuration code. This is particularly true for ORM frameworks in general. However, if you follow the conventions adopted by Rails, you'll need to write very little configuration (in some case no configuration at all) when creating Active Record models. The idea is that if you configure your applications in the very same way most of the times then this should be the default way. In this cases, explicit configuration would be needed only in those cases where you can't follow the conventions for any reason.
+
+h4. Naming Conventions
+
+By default, Active Record uses some naming conventions to find out how the mapping between models and database tables should be created. Rails will pluralize your class names to find the respective database table. So, for a class +Book+, you should have a database table called *books*. The Rails pluralization mechanisms are very powerful, being capable to pluralize (and singularize) both regular and irregular words. When using class names composed of two or more words, the model class name should follow the Ruby conventions, using the CamelCase form, while the table name must contain the words separated by underscores. Examples:
+
+* Database Table - Plural with underscores separating words (e.g., +book_clubs+)
+* Model Class - Singular with the first letter of each word capitalized (e.g., +BookClub+)
+
+|_.Model / Class |_.Table / Schema |
+|+Post+          |+posts+|
+|+LineItem+      |+line_items+|
+|+Deer+          |+deer+|
+|+Mouse+         |+mice+|
+|+Person+        |+people+|
+
+
+h4. Schema Conventions
+
+Active Record uses naming conventions for the columns in database tables, depending on the purpose of these columns.
+
+* *Foreign keys* - These fields should be named following the pattern +singularized_table_name_id+ (e.g., +item_id+, +order_id+). These are the fields that Active Record will look for when you create associations between your models.
+* *Primary keys* - By default, Active Record will use an integer column named +id+ as the table's primary key. When using "Rails Migrations":migrations.html to create your tables, this column will be automatically created.
+
+There are also some optional column names that will create additional features to Active Record instances:
+
+* +created_at+ - Automatically gets set to the current date and time when the record is first created.
+* +created_on+ - Automatically gets set to the current date when the record is first created.
+* +updated_at+ - Automatically gets set to the current date and time whenever the record is updated.
+* +updated_on+ - Automatically gets set to the current date whenever the record is updated.
+* +lock_version+ - Adds "optimistic locking":http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Locking.html to a model.
+* +type+ - Specifies that the model uses "Single Table Inheritance":http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Base.html
+* +(table_name)_count+ - Used to cache the number of belonging objects on associations. For example, a +comments_count+ column in a +Post+ class that has many instances of +Comment+ will cache the number of existent comments for each post.
+
+NOTE: While these column names are optional, they are in fact reserved by Active Record. Steer clear of reserved keywords unless you want the extra functionality. For example, +type+ is a reserved keyword used to designate a table using Single Table Inheritance (STI). If you are not using STI, try an analogous keyword like "context", that may still accurately describe the data you are modeling.
+
+h3. Creating Active Record Models
+
+It is very easy to create Active Record models. All you have to do is to subclass the +ActiveRecord::Base+ class and you're good to go:
+
+<ruby>
+class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
+end
+</ruby>
+
+This will create a +Product+ model, mapped to a +products+ table at the database. By doing this you'll also have the ability to map the columns of each row in that table with the attributes of the instances of your model. Suppose that the +products+ table was created using an SQL sentence like:
+
+<sql>
+CREATE TABLE products (
+   id int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
+   name varchar(255),
+   PRIMARY KEY  (id)
+);
+</sql>
+
+Following the table schema above, you would be able to write code like the following:
+
+<ruby>
+p = Product.new
+p.name = "Some Book"
+puts p.name # "Some Book"
+</ruby>
+
+h3. Overriding the Naming Conventions
+
+What if you need to follow a different naming convention or need to use your Rails application with a legacy database? No problem, you can easily override the default conventions.
+
+You can use the +ActiveRecord::Base.table_name=+ method to specify the table name that should be used:
+
+<ruby>
+class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
+  self.table_name = "PRODUCT"
+end
+</ruby>
+
+If you do so, you will have to define manually the class name that is hosting the fixtures (class_name.yml) using the +set_fixture_class+ method in your test definition:
+
+<ruby>
+class FunnyJoke < ActiveSupport::TestCase
+  set_fixture_class :funny_jokes => 'Joke'
+  fixtures :funny_jokes
+  ...
+end
+</ruby>
+
+It's also possible to override the column that should be used as the table's primary key using the +ActiveRecord::Base.set_primary_key+ method:
+
+<ruby>
+class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
+  set_primary_key "product_id"
+end
+</ruby>
+
+h3. CRUD: Reading and Writing Data
+
+CRUD is an acronym for the four verbs we use to operate on data: *C*reate, *R*ead, *U*pdate and *D*elete. Active Record automatically creates methods to allow an application to read and manipulate data stored within its tables.
+
+h4. Create
+
+Active Record objects can be created from a hash, a block or have their attributes manually set after creation. The +new+ method will return a new object while +create+ will return the object and save it to the database.
+
+For example, given a model +User+ with attributes of +name+ and +occupation+, the +create+ method call will create and save a new record into the database:
+
+<ruby>
+  user = User.create(:name => "David", :occupation => "Code Artist")
+</ruby>
+
+Using the +new+ method, an object can be created without being saved:
+
+<ruby>
+  user = User.new
+  user.name = "David"
+  user.occupation = "Code Artist"
+</ruby>
+
+A call to +user.save+ will commit the record to the database.
+
+Finally, if a block is provided, both +create+ and +new+ will yield the new object to that block for initialization:
+
+<ruby>
+  user = User.new do |u|
+    u.name = "David"
+    u.occupation = "Code Artist"
+  end
+</ruby>
+
+h4. Read
+
+Active Record provides a rich API for accessing data within a database. Below are a few examples of different data access methods provided by Active Record.
+
+<ruby>
+  # return array with all records
+  users = User.all
+</ruby>
+
+<ruby>
+  # return the first record
+  user = User.first
+</ruby>
+
+<ruby>
+  # return the first user named David
+  david = User.find_by_name('David')
+</ruby>
+
+<ruby>
+  # find all users named David who are Code Artists and sort by created_at in reverse chronological order
+  users = User.where(:name => 'David', :occupation => 'Code Artist').order('created_at DESC')
+</ruby>
+
+You can learn more about querying an Active Record model in the "Active Record Query Interface":"active_record_querying.html" guide.
+
+h4. Update
+
+Once an Active Record object has been retrieved, its attributes can be modified and it can be saved to the database.
+
+<ruby>
+  user = User.find_by_name('David')
+  user.name = 'Dave'
+  user.save
+</ruby>
+
+h4. Delete
+
+Likewise, once retrieved an Active Record object can be destroyed which removes it from the database.
+
+<ruby>
+  user = User.find_by_name('David')
+  user.destroy
+</ruby>
+
+h3. Validations
+
+Active Record allows you to validate the state of a model before it gets written into the database. There are several methods that you can use to check your models and validate that an attribute value is not empty, is unique and not already in the database, follows a specific format and many more. You can learn more about validations in the "Active Record Validations and Callbacks guide":active_record_validations_callbacks.html#validations-overview.
+
+h3. Callbacks
+
+Active Record callbacks allow you to attach code to certain events in the life-cycle of your models. This enables you to add behavior to your models by transparently executing code when those events occur, like when you create a new record, update it, destroy it and so on. You can learn more about callbacks in the "Active Record Validations and Callbacks guide":active_record_validations_callbacks.html#callbacks-overview.
+
+h3. Migrations
+
+Rails provides a domain-specific language for managing a database schema called migrations. Migrations are stored in files which are executed against any database that Active Record support using rake. Rails keeps track of which files have been committed to the database and provides rollback features. You can learn more about migrations in the "Active Record Migrations guide":migrations.html