Wednesday, July 09, 2008

[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