Active Model Basics

This guide should provide you with all you need to get started using model classes. Active Model allows for Action Pack helpers to interact with non-Active Record models. Active Model also helps building custom ORMs for use outside of the Rails framework.

After reading this guide, you will know:

Introduction

Active Model is a library containing various modules used in developing frameworks that need to interact with the Rails Action Pack library. Active Model provides a known set of interfaces for usage in classes. Some of modules are explained below.

AttributeMethods

The AttributeMethods module can add custom prefixes and suffixes on methods of a class. It is used by defining the prefixes and suffixes and which methods on the object will use them.

class Person
  include ActiveModel::AttributeMethods

  attribute_method_prefix 'reset_'
  attribute_method_suffix '_highest?'
  define_attribute_methods 'age'

  attr_accessor :age

  private
    def reset_attribute(attribute)
      send("#{attribute}=", 0)
    end

    def attribute_highest?(attribute)
      send(attribute) > 100
    end
end

person = Person.new
person.age = 110
person.age_highest?  # true
person.reset_age     # 0
person.age_highest?  # false

Callbacks

Callbacks gives Active Record style callbacks. This provides an ability to define callbacks which run at appropriate times. After defining callbacks, you can wrap them with before, after and around custom methods.

class Person
  extend ActiveModel::Callbacks

  define_model_callbacks :update

  before_update :reset_me

  def update
    run_callbacks(:update) do
      # This method is called when update is called on an object.
    end
  end

  def reset_me
    # This method is called when update is called on an object as a before_update callback is defined.
  end
end

Conversion

If a class defines persisted? and id methods, then you can include the Conversion module in that class and call the Rails conversion methods on objects of that class.

class Person
  include ActiveModel::Conversion

  def persisted?
    false
  end

  def id
    nil
  end
end

person = Person.new
person.to_model == person  # => true
person.to_key              # => nil
person.to_param            # => nil

Dirty

An object becomes dirty when it has gone through one or more changes to its attributes and has not been saved. This gives the ability to check whether an object has been changed or not. It also has attribute based accessor methods. Let's consider a Person class with attributes first_name and last_name:

require 'active_model'

class Person
  include ActiveModel::Dirty
  define_attribute_methods :first_name, :last_name

  def first_name
    @first_name
  end

  def first_name=(value)
    first_name_will_change!
    @first_name = value
  end

  def last_name
    @last_name
  end

  def last_name=(value)
    last_name_will_change!
    @last_name = value
  end

  def save
    # do save work...
    changes_applied
  end
end

Querying object directly for its list of all changed attributes.

person = Person.new
person.changed? # => false

person.first_name = "First Name"
person.first_name # => "First Name"

# returns if any attribute has changed.
person.changed? # => true

# returns a list of attributes that have changed before saving.
person.changed # => ["first_name"]

# returns a hash of the attributes that have changed with their original values.
person.changed_attributes # => {"first_name"=>nil}

# returns a hash of changes, with the attribute names as the keys, and the values will be an array of the old and new value for that field.
person.changes # => {"first_name"=>[nil, "First Name"]}

Attribute based accessor methods

Track whether the particular attribute has been changed or not.

# attr_name_changed?
person.first_name # => "First Name"
person.first_name_changed? # => true

Track what was the previous value of the attribute.

# attr_name_was accessor
person.first_name_was # => "First Name"

Track both previous and current value of the changed attribute. Returns an array if changed, else returns nil.

# attr_name_change
person.first_name_change # => [nil, "First Name"]
person.last_name_change # => nil

Validations

Validations module adds the ability to class objects to validate them in Active Record style.

class Person
  include ActiveModel::Validations

  attr_accessor :name, :email, :token

  validates :name, presence: true
  validates_format_of :email, with: /\A([^\s]+)((?:[-a-z0-9]\.)[a-z]{2,})\z/i
  validates! :token, presence: true
end

person = Person.new(token: "2b1f325")
person.valid?                        # => false
person.name = 'vishnu'
person.email = 'me'
person.valid?                        # => false
person.email = 'me@vishnuatrai.com'
person.valid?                        # => true
person.token = nil
person.valid?                        # => raises ActiveModel::StrictValidationFailed

ActiveModel::Naming

Naming adds a number of class methods which make the naming and routing easier to manage. The module defines the model_name class method which will define a number of accessors using some ActiveSupport::Inflector methods.

class Person
  extend ActiveModel::Naming
end

Person.model_name.name                # => "Person"
Person.model_name.singular            # => "person"
Person.model_name.plural              # => "people"
Person.model_name.element             # => "person"
Person.model_name.human               # => "Person"
Person.model_name.collection          # => "people"
Person.model_name.param_key           # => "person"
Person.model_name.i18n_key            # => :person
Person.model_name.route_key           # => "people"
Person.model_name.singular_route_key  # => "person"

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