[PLUGIN RELEASE] ActsAsOverflowable

acts_as_overflowable

Written by Nicholas Lega

== DESCRIPTION:

Allows a column to overflow data into a secondary column if the data size exceeds the character limit. This is useful for fast indexing.

Instead of trying to index text blobs, you can specify a varchar column to be used for indexing. Any characters that do not fit into the base column will be automatically saved into or retrieved from an overflow field.


== SYNOPSIS:

Create overflow column migration:

 class CreateOverflowModels < ActiveRecord::Migration   
   def self.up         
     create_table :overflows do |t|       
       t.integer :overflowable_id       
       t.string :overflowable_type       
       t.string :overflow       
       t.timestamps     
     end

     add_column(:my_class_that_uses_overflows,
                :has_overflow,                 
                :boolean)     

     add_column(:my_class_that_uses_overflows,                 
                :overflowable_text,                 
                :string,                 
                :limit => 255)
   end

   def self.down
     drop_table :overflows

     remove_column(:my_class_that_uses_overflows,
                   :has_overflow)

     remove_column(:my_class_that_uses_overflows, 
                   :overflowable_text)
   end
 end

Add to model:

 class MyClassThatUsesOverflow < ActiveRecord::Base   
   acts_as_overflowable :overflow_column => :overflowable_text,
                        :overflow_limit => 255,
                        :overflow_indicator => :has_overflow,
                        :overflow_table => :overflows
 end

To get and set the value of the "overflowable_text" field as described in the test model, use:

 # #{my_field_name_here}_with_overflow is the method name
 long_text = overflowable_obj.overflowable_text_with_overflow

 overflowable_obj.overflowable_text_with_overflow = very_long_text

Simply using the getters and setters for "overflowable_text" without appending "_with_overflow" to the method name will return the fragment of the text contained in the base column.


== INSTALL:

sudo gem install revolutionhealth-acts_as_overflowable -s http://gems.github.com


== SOURCE:

http://github.com/revolutionhealth/acts_as_overflowable/tree/master


== FEATURES/PROBLEMS:

* Only tested on mysql and sqlite3