Userstamper

Userstamp extends ActiveRecord::Base to add automatic updating of creator and updater attributes.

Two class methods (model_stamper and stampable) are implemented in this gem. The model_stamper method is used in models that are responsible for creating or updating other objects. Typically this would be the User model of your application. The stampable method is used in models that are subject to being created or updated by stampers.

Gem was latest tested with Ruby 3.1.3 and Rails 7.0.3 In history the gem has been tested with Ruby 2.7.2, 2.7.3 and Rails 6.1.3.1.

to result in a belongs_to relation which looks like:

  belongs_to :creator, class_name: '::User', foreign_key: :created_by

This includes changes to perform model stamping before validation. This allows models to enforce the presence of stamp attributes:

  validates :created_by, presence: true
  validates :updated_by, presence: true

Furthermore, the creator attribute is set only if the value is blank allowing for a manual override.

Assume that we are building a blog application, with User and Post objects. Add the following to the application's Gemfile:

  gem 'userstamper'

Define an initializer in your Rails application to configure the gem: config/initilialize/userstamper.rb:

Userstamper.configure do |config|
  # config.default_stamper = 'User'
  # config.creator_attribute = :creator_id
  # config.updater_attribute = :updater_id
  config.deleter_attribute = nil
end

Ensure that each model has a set of columns for creators and updaters.

  class CreateUsers < ActiveRecord::Migration
    def change
      create_table :users do |t|
        ...
        t.userstamps
      end
    end
  end

  class CreatePosts < ActiveRecord::Migration
    def change
      create_table :posts do |t|
        ...
        t.userstamps
      end
    end
  end

If you use protect_from_forgery, make sure the hooks are prepended:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  protect_from_forgery with: :exception, prepend: true # with: anything will do, note `prepend: true`!
end

Declare the stamper on the User model:

  class User < ActiveRecord::Base
    model_stamper
  end

If your stamper is called User, that's it; you're done.

The association which is created on each of the creator_id and updater_id can be customised. Also, the stamper used by each class can also be customised. For this purpose, the ActiveRecord::Base.stampable method can be used:

  class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
    stampable
  end

The stampable method allows you to customize the creator and updater associations. It also allows you to specify the name of the stamper for the class being declared. Any additional arguments are passed to the belongs_to declaration.

When upgradeing from activerecord_userstamp gem, please remove deleted attributes. Soft delete is not supported and not recommended. Soft delete is more pain in real life.

Run

$ bundle exec rspec

This is a fork of:

• the activerecord-userstamp gem
• the magiclabs-userstamp gem
• which is a fork of Michael Grosser's [userstamp gem] (https://github.com/grosser/userstamp)
• which is a fork of the original userstamp plugin by delynn

In addition to these, some ideas are cherry picked from the following forks:

• simplificator
• akm
• konvenit

• DeLynn Berry: The original idea for this plugin came from the Rails Wiki article entitled Extending ActiveRecord
• Michael Grosser
• John Dell
• Chris Hilton
• Thomas von Deyen
• Joel Low
• Priit Tark
• Carsten Reinke