Userstamp

Userstamp Plugin (v 1.0)

Overview

The Userstamp Plugin extends ActiveRecord::Base(http://api.rubyonrails.com/classes/ActiveRecord/Base.html) to add automatic updating of created_by and updated_by attributes of your models in much the same way that the ActiveRecord::Timestamp(http://api.rubyonrails.com/classes/ActiveRecord/Timestamp.html) module updates created_(at/on) and updated_(at/on) attributes.

The module requires that your application’s user object (User by default) contains an accessor called current_user be set with an instance of the currently logged in user (typically using a before_filter(http://api.rubyonrails.com/classes/ActionController/Filters/ClassMethods.html#M000127). This module can also be turned off on a case by case basis by setting the record_userstamps attribute of your ActiveRecord object to false.

Installation

To install the Userstamp plugin into a current Rails application run the script/plugin script from the root of your application passing it the url of http://www.delynnberry.com/svn/code/rails/plugins/userstamp/. For example:

script/plugin install http://www.delynnberry.com/svn/code/rails/plugins/userstamp

Once installed you will need to restart your webserver for the plugin to be loaded into the Rails environment.

Usage

Here is a simple example for how to use the Userstamp plugin. First, create a User model object (either using the generator or manually creating the file). Adjust your model to include the current_user accessor like so:

class User &lt; ActiveRecord::Base
    cattr_accessor :current_user
end

Second, create another table and model that will use the Userstamp functionality (I’m using Post for this example). Be sure to add the created_by and updated_by columns to your table definition and also create a belongs_to relationship. For example:

class Post &lt; ActiveRecord::Base
    belongs_to :created_by, :class_name => "User", :foreign_key => "created_by" 
    belongs_to :updated_by, :class_name => "User", :foreign_key => "updated_by" 
end

Then in your ApplicationController create a before_filter to automatically set the current_user:

class ApplicationController &lt; ActionController::Base
    before_filter do |c|
       User.current_user = User.find(c.session[:user].id) unless c.session[:user].nil?
    end
end

Uninstall

Uninstalling is simply a matter of running script/plugin from the root of your Rails application. Except this time you pass the uninstall parameter:

script/plugin remove userstamp

Documentation

RDoc has been run on the plugin directory and is available in the download.

Running Unit Tests

There are extensive unit tests in the “test” directory of the plugin. Currently, only MySQL is supported, but you should be able to easily fix this by looking at “connection.rb”. You’ll need to create a database for the tests and put the connection information into “connection.rb” as well as import the schema file for MySQL that can be found at “test/fixtures/mysql.sql”.

To run the test simply execute the follow from the test directory inside the Userstamp plugin directory:

ruby userstamp_test.rb

Bugs & Feedback

Bug reports and feedback are always welcome. Please send them to delynn@gmail.com with [Userstamp] in the subject line. You can also visit (http://www.delynnberry.com/articles/category/userstamp/) and post a comment on any of the posts.

Credits and Special Thanks

The original idea for this plugin came from the Rails Wiki article entitled “Extending ActiveRecord” (http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/ExtendingActiveRecordExample). Special Thanks to Ben Reubenstein (benr75@gmail.com) for helping me stress test this plugin.