Activesupport BinaryProperty

Activesupport BinaryProperty is a ActiveSupport::Concern that provides an enum-like functionality for multiple values

Installation

Run bundle add activesupport-binary-property

Setup

First, add an integer-column to a table:

class AddRolesToUser < ActiveRecord::Migration[7.0]
  def change
    add_column(:users, :roles, :integer)
  end
end

Then, include the concern in your model:

  include BinaryProperty

And configure a property:

  has_binary_property :roles, {
                        admin: 1,
                        manager: 2,
                        supervisor: 4
                      }

Optinally add _prefix or _suffix similar to how enum works

Binary

In this example the integer roles will be used to store up to 3 values. To do that it uses a single bit for each possible value.

It's required that each value you make available uses a single bit. The paragraph 'Counting in binary' in an article about Binary numbers on Wikipedia can help you understand how this works and how multiple values can be used.

Usage

Using the example above some methods are added to the User

Listing

You can get all available roles by accessing User#roles:

001:0> User.roles
=> {:admin=>1, :manager=>2, :supervisor=>4}

Scope

Scopes are made for each of the values:

001:0> User.admin.count
=> 1

Getters

Get details about the roles:

001:0> user = User.first
=> #<User ...

002:0> user.roles
=> 1

003:0> user.role_list
=> [:admin]

004:0> user.admin
=> true

005:0> user.manager
=> false

006:0> user.admin?
=> true

007:0> user.manager?
=> false

Setters

Set roles:

001:0> user = User.first
=> #<User ...

002:0> user.manager?
=> false

003:0> user.manager = true
=> true

004:0> user.manager?
=> true

005:0> user.supervisor = '0' # to process input from a check_box
=> "0"

006:0> user.supervisor?
=> false

007:0> user.supervisor = '1'
=> "1"

008:0> user.supervisor?
=> true