= Active Model - defined interfaces for Rails
Prior to Rails 3.0, if a plugin or gem developer wanted to be able to have
an object interact with Action Pack helpers, it was required to either
copy chunks of code from Rails, or monkey patch entire helpers to make them
handle objects that did not look like Active Record. This generated code
duplication and fragile applications that broke on upgrades.
Active Model is a solution for this problem.
Active Model provides a known set of interfaces that your objects can implement
to then present a common interface to the Action Pack helpers. You can include
functionality from the following modules:
* Adding callbacks to your class
class MyClass
extend ActiveModel::Callbacks
define_model_callbacks :create
def create
_run_create_callbacks do
# Your create action methods here
end
end
end
...gives you before_create, around_create and after_create class methods that
wrap your create method.
{Learn more}[link:classes/ActiveModel/CallBacks.html]
* For classes that already look like an Active Record object
class MyClass
include ActiveModel::Conversion
end
...returns the class itself when sent :to_model
* Tracking changes in your object
Provides all the value tracking features implemented by ActiveRecord...
person = Person.new
person.name # => nil
person.changed? # => false
person.name = 'bob'
person.changed? # => true
person.changed # => ['name']
person.changes # => { 'name' => [nil, 'bob'] }
person.name = 'robert'
person.save
person.previous_changes # => {'name' => ['bob, 'robert']}
{Learn more}[link:classes/ActiveModel/Dirty.html]
