Question

I’ve been looking for a while for gems and/or plugins that implement static storage similar ActiveRecords but is not database-based. Let’s call this class NonDBRecord. It should have the following property:

class Foo < NonDBRecord
  add_item('a', :property1 => 'some value', :property2 => 'some more value')
  add_item('b', :property1 => 'some value', :property2 => 'some more value')
end

class Bar < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to_nondbrecord :foo, :class_name => 'Foo'
end

# NonDBRecord declare constants automatically
[ Foo::A, Foo::B ]

# NonDBRecord is enumerable
Foo.all # returns [Foo::A,Foo::B]

# NonDBRecord is id-based
Bar.create(:foo_id => Foo::A.id)

# ...so you can search by it
x = Bar.find(:first, :conditions => { :foo_id => Foo::A.id })

# ...and is stored, retrieved, and instantiated by its id
x.foo # returns Foo::A

I’ve thought about simply using ActiveRecords (and database storage), but I don’t feel good about it. Plus I’ve had to tip-toe around some eager loading problems with the ActiveRecord solution. Any help would be appreciated before I start writing my own solution.

edit

These records are meant to be enumerations. For example, let’s say you’re making a card game. I want to be able to do something like

class Card < NonDBRecord
  attr_reader :suit, :index
end
class Game
  belongs_to :wild_card, :class_name => 'Card'
end

Answer 1

I would say ActiveModel is what you are looking for. It comes with Rails 3 and encapsulates all kind of goodies from ActiveRecord, such as Validation, Serialization and sorts. There is a Ryan Bates railscast on that issue. Hope this helps!