[ANN] Active Record 0.9.1: More naturalness, new license

[David Heinemeier Hansson]

What's new in Active Record 0.9.1?
==================================

This is a minor update that brings more natural object-style accessing
to has_and_belongs_to_many and has_many. It also changed the license to
MIT license.

Download from http://activerecord.rubyonrails.org, talk on #rubyonrails
(FreeNet).


* Added natural object-style assignment for has_and_belongs_to_many
associations.
Consider the following model:

class Event < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one_and_belongs_to_many :sponsors
end

class Sponsor < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one_and_belongs_to_many :sponsors
end

Earlier, you'd have to use synthetic methods for creating
associations between two objects of the above class:

roskilde_festival.add_to_sponsors(carlsberg)
roskilde_festival.remove_from_sponsors(carlsberg)

nike.add_to_events(world_cup)
nike.remove_from_events(world_cup)

Now you can use regular array-styled methods:

roskilde_festival.sponsors << carlsberg
roskilde_festival.sponsors.delete(carlsberg)

nike.events << world_cup
nike.events.delete(world_cup)

* Added delete method for has_many associations. Using this will
nullify an association between the has_many and the belonging
object by setting the foreign key to null. Consider this model:

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :comments
end

class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to ost
end

You could do something like:

funny_comment.has_post? # => true
announcement.comments.delete(funny_comment)
funny_comment.has_post? # => false


What about Active Record 1.0.0?
==================================

Active Record will be moving to promised land of 1.0.0 within a
reasonably short time frame. So if you have any wishes, comments, or
complaints, you'll want to voice them sooner rather than later. 1.0.0
won't mean the end of developement, of course, but it would be nice to
have a really solid release. So do speak forth.


Call for help!
==============

Do you have working knowledge with and access to either Oracle, ODBC,
Sybase, or DB2, I'd be really grateful if you would consider writing an
adapter for Active Record. Adapters are usually just around 100 lines
of code. You'll have three examples to look at, a well-specified
interface[1], and almost 100 test cases to make it real easy. Luke
Holden reports that he spent just a few hours getting SQLite and
PostgreSQL adapters working.

[1] http://ar.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/ConnectionAdapters/
AbstractAdapter.html


Active Record -- Object-relation mapping put on rails
=====================================================

Active Record connects business objects and database tables to create a
persistable
domain model where logic and data is presented in one wrapping. It's an
implementation of the object-relational mapping (ORM) pattern by the
same name as described by Martin Fowler:

"An object that wraps a row in a database table or view, encapsulates
the database access, and adds domain logic on that data."

Active Records main contribution to the pattern is to relieve the
original of two stunting problems: lack of associations and
inheritance. By adding a simple domain language-like set of macros to
describe the former and integrating the Single Table Inheritance
pattern for the latter, Active Record narrows the gap of functionality
between the data mapper and active record approach.

A short rundown of the major features:

* Automated mapping between classes and tables, attributes and columns.
class Product < ActiveRecord::Base; end

...is automatically mapped to the table named "products", such as:

CREATE TABLE products (
id int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
name varchar(255),
PRIMARY KEY (id)
);

...which again gives Product#name and Product#name=(new_name)


* Associations between objects controlled by simple meta-programming
macros.
class Firm < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :clients
has_one :account
belong_to :conglomorate
end


* Aggregations of value objects controlled by simple meta-programming
macros.
class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
composed_of :balance, :class_name => "Money",
:mapping => %w(balance amount)
composed_of :address,
:mapping => [%w(address_street street),
%w(address_city city)]
end


* Validation rules that can differ for new or existing objects.
class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
def validate # validates on both creates and updates
errors.add_on_empty "title"
end

def validate_on_update
errors.add_on_empty "password"
end
end


* Callbacks as methods or ques on the entire lifecycle
(instantiation, saving, destroying, validating, etc).

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
def before_destroy # is called just before Person#destroy
CreditCard.find(credit_card_id).destroy
end
end

class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
after_find :eager_load, 'self.class.announce(#{id})'
end

Learn more in link:classes/ActiveRecord/Callbacks.html


* Observers for the entire lifecycle
class CommentObserver < ActiveRecord::Observer
def after_create(comment) # is called just after Comment#save
NotificationService.send_email("(e-mail address removed)",
comment)
end
end


* Inheritance hierarchies
class Company < ActiveRecord::Base; end
class Firm < Company; end
class Client < Company; end
class PriorityClient < Client; end


* Transaction support on both a database and object level. The latter
is implemented
by using Transaction::Simple

# Just database transaction
Account.transaction do
david.withdrawal(100)
mary.deposit(100)
end

# Database and object transaction
Account.transaction(david, mary) do
david.withdrawal(100)
mary.deposit(100)
end


* Direct manipulation (instead of service invocation)

So instead of (Hibernate example):

long pkId = 1234;
DomesticCat pk = (DomesticCat) sess.load( Cat.class, new
Long(pkId) );
// something interesting involving a cat...
sess.save(cat);
sess.flush(); // force the SQL INSERT

Active Record lets you:

pkId = 1234
cat = Cat.find(pkId)
# something even more interesting involving a the same cat...
cat.save


* Database abstraction through simple adapters (~100 lines) with a
shared connector

ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connectionadapter => "sqlite",
:dbfile => "dbfile")

ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(
:adapter => "mysql",
:host => "localhost",
:username => "me",
assword => "secret",
:database => "activerecord"
)


* Logging support for Log4r and Logger

ActiveRecord::Base.logger = Logger.new(STDOUT)
ActiveRecord::Base.logger = Log4r::Logger.new("Application Log")


Philosophy
==========

Active Record attempts to provide a coherent wrapping for the
inconvenience that is object-relational mapping. The prime directive
for this mapping has been to minimize the amount of code needed to
built a real-world domain model. This is made possible by relying on a
number of conventions that make it easy for Active Record to infer
complex relations and structures from a minimal amount of explicit
direction.

Convention over Configuration:
* No XML-files!
* Lots of reflection and run-time extension
* Magic is not inherently a bad word

Admit the Database:
* Lets you drop down to SQL for odd cases and performance
* Doesn't attempt to duplicate or replace data definitions

--
David Heinemeier Hansson,
http://www.rubyonrails.org/ -- Web-application framework for Ruby
http://www.instiki.org/ -- A No-Step-Three Wiki in Ruby
http://www.basecamphq.com/ -- Web-based Project Management
http://www.loudthinking.com/ -- Broadcasting Brain
http://www.nextangle.com/ -- Development & Consulting Services