workflow-orchestrator 1.3.0

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+# Workflow Orchestrator [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/lorefnon/workflow-orchestrator.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/lorefnon/workflow-orchestrator)
+
+A ruby DSL for modeling business logic as [Finite State Machines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite-state_machine).
+
+The aim of this library is to make the expression of these concepts as clear as possible, utilizing the expressiveness of ruby language, and using similar terminology as found in state machine theory.
+
+## Concepts
+
+- **State:** A workflow is in exactly one state at a time. State may optionally be persisted using ActiveRecord.
+- **State transition:** Change of state can be observed and intercepted
+- **Events:** Events cause state transitions to occur
+- **Actions:** Actions constitute of parts of our business logic which are executed in response to state transitions.
+
+We can hook into states when they are entered, and exited from, and we can cause transitions to fail (guards), and we can hook in to every transition that occurs ever for whatever reason we can come up with.
+
+## Example
+
+Let's say we're modeling article submission from journalists. An article
+is written, then submitted. When it's submitted, it's awaiting review.
+Someone reviews the article, and then either accepts or rejects it.
+Here is the expression of this workflow using the API:
+
+```ruby
+class Article
+  include Workflow
+  workflow do
+    state :new do
+      event :submit, :transitions_to => :awaiting_review
+    end
+    state :awaiting_review do
+      event :review, :transitions_to => :being_reviewed
+    end
+    state :being_reviewed do
+      event :accept, :transitions_to => :accepted
+      event :reject, :transitions_to => :rejected
+    end
+    state :accepted
+    state :rejected
+  end
+end
+```
+
+Nice, isn't it!
+
+Note: the first state in the definition (`:new` in the example, but you
+can name it as you wish) is used as the initial state - newly created
+objects start their life cycle in that state.
+
+Let's create an article instance and check in which state it is:
+
+```ruby
+article = Article.new
+article.accepted? # => false
+article.new? # => true
+```
+
+You can also access the whole `current_state` object including the list
+of possible events and other meta information:
+
+```ruby
+article.current_state
+# => #<Workflow::State:0x007fa1ab36f750
+#  @events={:submit=>#<Workflow::Event:0x007fa1ab36f638 @action=nil, @meta={}, @name=:submit, @transitions_to=:awaiting_review>},
+#  @meta={},
+#  @name=:new
+```
+
+On Ruby 1.9 and above, you can check whether a state comes before or
+after another state (by the order they were defined):
+
+```ruby
+article.current_state.name
+# => being_reviewed
+article.current_state < :accepted
+# => true
+article.current_state >= :accepted
+# => false
+article.current_state.between? :awaiting_review, :rejected
+# => true
+```
+
+Now we can call the submit event, which transitions to the
+<tt>:awaiting_review</tt> state:
+
+```ruby
+article.submit!
+article.awaiting_review? # => true
+```
+
+Events are actually instance methods on a workflow, and depending on the
+state you're in, you'll have a different set of events used to
+transition to other states.
+
+It is also easy to check, if a certain transition is possible from the
+current state. `article.can_submit?` checks if there is a `:submit`
+event (transition) defined for the current state.
+
+
+Installation
+------------
+
+    `gem install workflow`
+    
+    `include Workflow` in your model.
+
+If you're using ActiveRecord, Workflow will by default use a "workflow_state" column on your model.
+
+**Important**: If you're interested in graphing your workflow state machine, you will also need to
+install the `activesupport` and `ruby-graphviz` gems.
+
+Transition event handler
+------------------------
+
+The best way is to use convention over configuration and to define a
+method with the same name as the event. Then it is automatically invoked
+when event is raised. For the Article workflow defined earlier it would
+be:
+
+```ruby
+class Article
+  def reject
+    puts 'sending email to the author explaining the reason...'
+  end
+end
+```
+
+`article.review!; article.reject!` will cause state transition to
+`being_reviewed` state, persist the new state (if integrated with
+ActiveRecord), invoke this user defined `reject` method and finally
+persist the `rejected` state.
+
+Note: on successful transition from one state to another the workflow
+gem immediately persists the new workflow state with `update_column()`,
+bypassing any ActiveRecord callbacks including `updated_at` update.
+This way it is possible to deal with the validation and to save the
+pending changes to a record at some later point instead of the moment
+when transition occurs.
+
+You can also define event handler accepting/requiring additional
+arguments:
+
+```ruby
+class Article
+  def review(reviewer = '')
+    puts "[#{reviewer}] is now reviewing the article"
+  end
+end
+
+article2 = Article.new
+article2.submit!
+article2.review!('Homer Simpson') # => [Homer Simpson] is now reviewing the article
+```
+
+### The old, deprecated way
+
+The old way, using a block is still supported but deprecated:
+
+```ruby
+event :review, :transitions_to => :being_reviewed do |reviewer|
+  # store the reviewer
+end
+```
+
+We've noticed, that mixing the list of events and states with the blocks
+invoked for particular transitions leads to a bumpy and poorly readable code
+due to a deep nesting. We tried (and dismissed) lambdas for this. Eventually
+we decided to invoke an optional user defined callback method with the same
+name as the event (convention over configuration) as explained before.
+
+
+Integration with ActiveRecord
+-----------------------------
+
+Workflow library can handle the state persistence fully automatically. You
+only need to define a string field on the table called `workflow_state`
+and include the workflow mixin in your model class as usual:
+
+```ruby
+class Order < ActiveRecord::Base
+  include Workflow
+  workflow do
+    # list states and transitions here
+  end
+end
+```
+
+On a database record loading all the state check methods e.g.
+`article.state`, `article.awaiting_review?` are immediately available.
+For new records or if the `workflow_state` field is not set the state
+defaults to the first state declared in the workflow specification. In
+our example it is `:new`, so `Article.new.new?` returns true and
+`Article.new.approved?` returns false.
+
+At the end of a successful state transition like `article.approve!` the
+new state is immediately saved in the database.
+
+You can change this behaviour by overriding `persist_workflow_state`
+method.
+
+### Scopes
+
+Workflow library also adds automatically generated scopes with names based on
+states names:
+
+```ruby
+class Order < ActiveRecord::Base
+  include Workflow
+  workflow do
+    state :approved
+    state :pending
+  end
+end
+
+# returns all orders with `approved` state
+Order.with_approved_state
+
+# returns all orders except for those having `approved` state
+Order.without_approved_state
+
+# returns all orders except for those having `pending` state
+Order.without_pending_state
+```
+
+
+### Custom workflow database column
+
+[meuble](http://imeuble.info/) contributed a solution for using
+custom persistence column easily, e.g. for a legacy database schema:
+
+```ruby
+class LegacyOrder < ActiveRecord::Base
+  include Workflow
+
+  workflow_column :foo_bar # use this legacy database column for
+                           # persistence
+end
+```
+
+You can also set the column name inline into the workflow block:
+
+```ruby
+class LegacyOrder < ActiveRecord::Base
+  include Workflow
+
+  workflow :foo_bar do
+    state :approved
+    state :pending
+  end
+end
+```
+
+### Single table inheritance
+
+Single table inheritance is also supported. Descendant classes can either
+inherit the workflow definition from the parent or override with its own
+definition.
+
+Custom workflow state persistence
+---------------------------------
+
+If you do not use a relational database and ActiveRecord, you can still
+integrate the workflow very easily. To implement persistence you just
+need to override `load_workflow_state` and
+`persist_workflow_state(new_value)` methods. Next section contains an example for
+using CouchDB, a document oriented database.
+
+[Tim Lossen](http://tim.lossen.de/) implemented support
+for [remodel](http://github.com/tlossen/remodel) / [redis](http://github.com/antirez/redis)
+key-value store.
+
+Integration with CouchDB
+------------------------
+
+We are using the compact [couchtiny library](http://github.com/geekq/couchtiny)
+here. But the implementation would look similar for the popular
+couchrest library.
+
+```ruby
+require 'couchtiny'
+require 'couchtiny/document'
+require 'workflow'
+
+class User < CouchTiny::Document
+  include Workflow
+  workflow do
+    state :submitted do
+      event :activate_via_link, :transitions_to => :proved_email
+    end
+    state :proved_email
+  end
+
+  def load_workflow_state
+    self[:workflow_state]
+  end
+
+  def persist_workflow_state(new_value)
+    self[:workflow_state] = new_value
+    save!
+  end
+end
+```
+
+Please also have a look at
+[the full source code](http://github.com/geekq/workflow/blob/master/test/couchtiny_example.rb).
+
+
+Adapters to support other databases
+-----------------------------------
+
+I get a lot of requests to integrate persistence support for different
+databases, object-relational adapters, column stores, document
+databases.
+
+To enable highest possible quality, avoid too many dependencies and to
+avoid unneeded maintenance burden on the `workflow` core it is best to
+implement such support as a separate gem.
+
+Only support for the ActiveRecord will remain for the foreseeable
+future. So Rails beginners can expect `workflow` to work with Rails out
+of the box. Other already included adapters stay for a while but should
+be extracted to separate gems.
+
+If you want to implement support for your favorite ORM mapper or your
+favorite NoSQL database, you just need to implement a module which
+overrides the persistence methods `load_workflow_state` and
+`persist_workflow_state`. Example:
+
+```ruby
+module Workflow
+  module SuperCoolDb
+    module InstanceMethods
+      def load_workflow_state
+        # Load and return the workflow_state from some storage.
+        # You can use self.class.workflow_column configuration.
+      end
+
+      def persist_workflow_state(new_value)
+        # save the new_value workflow state
+      end
+    end
+
+    module ClassMethods
+      # class methods of your adapter go here
+    end
+
+    def self.included(klass)
+      klass.send :include, InstanceMethods
+      klass.extend ClassMethods
+    end
+  end
+end
+```
+
+The user of the adapter can use it then as:
+
+```ruby
+class Article
+  include Workflow
+  include Workflow::SuperCoolDb
+  workflow do
+    state :submitted
+    # ...
+  end
+end
+```
+
+I can then link to your implementation from this README. Please let me
+also know, if you need any interface beyond `load_workflow_state` and
+`persist_workflow_state` methods to implement an adapter for your
+favorite database.
+
+
+Custom Versions of Existing Adapters
+------------------------------------
+
+Other adapters (such as a custom ActiveRecord plugin) can be selected by adding a `workflow_adapter` class method, eg.
+
+```ruby
+class Example < ActiveRecord::Base
+  def self.workflow_adapter
+    MyCustomAdapter
+  end
+  include Workflow
+
+  # ...
+end
+```
+
+(The above will include `MyCustomAdapter` *instead* of `Workflow::Adapter::ActiveRecord`.)
+
+
+Accessing your workflow specification
+-------------------------------------
+
+You can easily reflect on workflow specification programmatically - for
+the whole class or for the current object. Examples:
+
+```ruby
+article2.current_state.events # lists possible events from here
+article2.current_state.events[:reject].transitions_to # => :rejected
+
+Article.workflow_spec.states.keys
+# => [:rejected, :awaiting_review, :being_reviewed, :accepted, :new]
+
+Article.workflow_spec.state_names
+# => [:rejected, :awaiting_review, :being_reviewed, :accepted, :new]
+
+# list all events for all states
+Article.workflow_spec.states.values.collect &:events
+```
+
+You can also store and later retrieve additional meta data for every
+state and every event:
+
+```ruby
+class MyProcess
+  include Workflow
+  workflow do
+    state :main, :meta => {:importance => 8}
+    state :supplemental, :meta => {:importance => 1}
+  end
+end
+puts MyProcess.workflow_spec.states[:supplemental].meta[:importance] # => 1
+```
+
+The workflow library itself uses this feature to tweak the graphical
+representation of the workflow. See below.
+
+
+Conditional event transitions
+-----------------------------
+
+Conditions can be a "method name symbol" with a corresponding instance method, a `proc` or `lambda` which are added to events, like so:
+
+```ruby
+    state :off do
+      event :turn_on, :transition_to => :on,
+                      :if => :sufficient_battery_level?
+
+      event :turn_on, :transition_to => :low_battery,
+                      :if => proc { |device| device.battery_level > 0 }
+    end
+
+    # corresponding instance method
+    def sufficient_battery_level?
+      battery_level > 10
+    end
+```
+
+When calling a `device.can_<fire_event>?` check, or attempting a `device.<event>!`, each event is checked in turn:
+
+* With no `:if` check, proceed as usual.
+* If an `:if` check is present, proceed if it evaluates to true, or drop to the next event.
+* If you've run out of events to check (eg. `battery_level == 0`), then the transition isn't possible.
+
+Enum values or other custom values
+-----------------------------------
+
+If you don't want to store your state as a string column, you can specify the value associated with each state.  Yu can use an int (like an enum) or a shorter string, or whatever you want.
+
+Just pass the "value" for the state as the second parameter to the "state" method.
+
+    Class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base
+      include Workflow
+    
+      workflow do
+        state :one, 1 do
+          event :increment, :transitions_to => :two
+        end
+        state :two, 2
+        on_transition do |from, to, triggering_event, *event_args|
+          Log.info "#{from} -> #{to}"
+        end
+      end
+    end
+
+Your database column will store the values 1, 2, etc.  But you'll still use the state symbols for querying.
+
+    foo = Foo.create
+    foo.current_state # => :one
+    foo.workflow_state # => 1 #You really shouldn't use this column directly...
+    foo.increment!
+    foo.two? # => true
+    foo.workflow_state # => true
+
+Hopefully obvious, but if you ever change the value of a state, you'll need to do a migration/address existing records in your data store.  However you are free to change the "name" of a state, willy-nilly.
+
+Advanced transition hooks
+-------------------------
+
+### `on_entry`/`on_exit`
+
+We already had a look at the declaring callbacks for particular workflow
+events. If you would like to react to all transitions to/from the same state
+in the same way you can use the `on_entry`/`on_exit` hooks. You can either define it
+with a block inside the workflow definition or through naming
+convention, e.g. for the state :pending just define the method
+`on_pending_exit(new_state, event, *args)` somewhere in your class.
+
+### `on_transition`
+
+If you want to be informed about everything happening everywhere, e.g. for
+logging then you can use the universal `on_transition` hook:
+
+```ruby
+workflow do
+  state :one do
+    event :increment, :transitions_to => :two
+  end
+  state :two
+  on_transition do |from, to, triggering_event, *event_args|
+    Log.info "#{from} -> #{to}"
+  end
+end
+```
+
+Please also have a look at the [advanced end to end
+example][advanced_hooks_and_validation_test].
+
+[advanced_hooks_and_validation_test]: http://github.com/geekq/workflow/blob/master/test/advanced_hooks_and_validation_test.rb
+
+### `on_error`
+
+If you want to do custom exception handling internal to workflow, you can define an `on_error` hook in your workflow.
+For example:
+
+```ruby
+workflow do
+  state :first do
+    event :forward, :transitions_to => :second
+  end
+  state :second
+
+  on_error do |error, from, to, event, *args|
+    Log.info "Exception(#error.class) on #{from} -> #{to}"
+  end
+end
+```
+
+If forward! results in an exception, `on_error` is invoked and the workflow stays in a 'first' state.  This capability
+is particularly useful if your errors are transient and you want to queue up a job to retry in the future without
+affecting the existing workflow state.
+
+Note: this is not triggered by Workflow::NoTransitionAllowed exceptions.
+
+### on_unavailable_transition
+
+If you want to do custom handling when an unavailable transition is called, you can define an 'on_unavailable_transition' hook
+in your workflow. For example
+
+    workflow do
+      state :first
+      state :second do
+        event :backward, :transitions_to => :first
+      end
+
+      on_unavailable_transition do |from, to_name, *args|
+        Log.warn "Workflow: #{from} does not have #{to_name} available to it"
+      end
+    end
+
+If backward! is called when in the `first` state, 'on_unavailable_transition' is invoked and workflow stays in a 'first' state.  This
+example surpresses the Workflow::NoTransitionAllowed exception from being raised, if you still want it to be raised you can simply
+call it yourself or return false.
+
+This is particularly useful when you don't want a processes to be aborted due to the workflow being in an unexpected state.
+
+### Guards
+
+If you want to halt the transition conditionally, you can just raise an
+exception in your [transition event handler](#transition_event_handler).
+There is a helper called `halt!`, which raises the
+Workflow::TransitionHalted exception. You can provide an additional
+`halted_because` parameter.
+
+```ruby
+def reject(reason)
+  halt! 'We do not reject articles unless the reason is important' \
+    unless reason =~ /important/i
+end
+```
+
+The traditional `halt` (without the exclamation mark) is still supported
+too. This just prevents the state change without raising an
+exception.
+
+You can check `halted?` and `halted_because` values later.
+
+### Hook order
+
+The whole event sequence is as follows:
+
+* `before_transition`
+* event specific action
+* `on_transition` (if action did not halt)
+* `on_exit`
+* PERSIST WORKFLOW STATE, i.e. transition
+* `on_entry`
+* `after_transition`
+
+
+Multiple Workflows
+------------------
+
+I am frequently asked if it's possible to represent multiple "workflows"
+in an ActiveRecord class.
+
+The solution depends on your business logic and how you want to
+structure your implementation.
+
+### Use Single Table Inheritance
+
+One solution can be to do it on the class level and use a class
+hierarchy. You can use [single table inheritance][STI] so there is only
+single `orders` table in the database. Read more in the chapter "Single
+Table Inheritance" of the [ActiveRecord documentation][ActiveRecord].
+Then you define your different classes:
+
+```ruby
+class Order < ActiveRecord::Base
+  include Workflow
+end
+
+class SmallOrder < Order
+  workflow do
+    # workflow definition for small orders goes here
+  end
+end
+
+class BigOrder < Order
+  workflow do
+    # workflow for big orders, probably with a longer approval chain
+  end
+end
+```
+
+### Individual workflows for objects
+
+Another solution would be to connect different workflows to object
+instances via metaclass, e.g.
+
+```ruby
+# Load an object from the database
+booking = Booking.find(1234)
+
+# Now define a workflow - exclusively for this object,
+# probably depending on some condition or database field
+if # some condition
+  class << booking
+    include Workflow
+    workflow do
+      state :state1
+      state :state2
+    end
+  end
+# if some other condition, use a different workflow
+```
+
+You can also encapsulate this in a class method or even put in some
+ActiveRecord callback. Please also have a look at [the full working
+example][multiple_workflow_test]!
+
+[STI]: http://www.martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/singleTableInheritance.html
+[ActiveRecord]: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Base.html
+[multiple_workflow_test]: http://github.com/geekq/workflow/blob/master/test/multiple_workflows_test.rb
+
+
+Documenting with diagrams
+-------------------------
+
+You can generate a graphical representation of the workflow for
+a particular class for documentation purposes.
+Use `Workflow::create_workflow_diagram(class)` in your rake task like:
+
+```ruby
+namespace :doc do
+  desc "Generate a workflow graph for a model passed e.g. as 'MODEL=Order'."
+  task :workflow => :environment do
+    require 'workflow/draw'
+    Workflow::Draw::workflow_diagram(ENV['MODEL'].constantize)
+  end
+end
+```
+
+About
+-----
+
+Workflow Orchestrator is maintained by [Lorefnon](https://lorefnon.me) along with [many contributors](https://github.com/lorefnon/workflow-orchestrator/graphs/contributors).
+
+This project was derived (forked) from the gem [geekq/workflow](https://github.com/geekq/workflow) by Vladimir Dobriakov, which was forked from the original repo authored by Ryan Allen. Both appear to be unmaintained as of 2016. 
+
+While it is largely compatible with geekq/workflow but breaking API changes will be introduced in coming versions. In addition, the intent is to extract the persistence and rails dependent features in different gems, leaving only the FSM management features in the core. 
+
+History
+-------
+
+Copyright (c) 2016 Lorefnon
+
+Copyright (c) 2010-2014 Vladimir Dobriakov
+
+Copyright (c) 2008-2009 Vodafone
+
+Copyright (c) 2007-2008 Ryan Allen, FlashDen Pty Ltd
+
+Based on the work of Ryan Allen and Scott Barron
+
+Licensed under MIT license, see the MIT-LICENSE file.