# Driving Rails from disk instead of SQL **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [May 25, 2006, 4:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/driving-rails-from-disk-instead-of-sql/61610 "2006-05-25T16:05:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Michael\_TSRichter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Michael\_TSRichter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Michael_TSRichter)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2006, 4:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/driving-rails-from-disk-instead-of-sql/61610/1 "2006-05-25T16:05:01Z")
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**Author:** ![Michael\_TSRichter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Michael\_TSRichter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Michael_TSRichter)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2006, 4:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/driving-rails-from-disk-instead-of-sql/61610/2 "2006-05-25T16:23:31Z")
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**Author:** ![Michael\_TSRichter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Michael\_TSRichter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Michael_TSRichter)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2006, 4:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/driving-rails-from-disk-instead-of-sql/61610/3 "2006-05-25T16:39:08Z")
On May 25, 2006, at 10:05 AM, Michael T. Richter wrote: > Ideally what I’d like to be able to do is have my Rails app browse > the directory tree directly and generate the forms, etc. on the > fly, filling it in with ID3 information as it does so. The problem > is that I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how to make Rails > use the file system as, in effect, a hierarchical database full of > BLOBs. I’m sure I have to write some kind of front-end for > ActiveRecord or something that does the trick, but I really don’t > even know where to begin with this. I’ve done a lot of digging > around at various Ruby- and Rails-oriented sites and can’t quite > see anything helpful. This is pretty easily done as it turns out. What you are trying to do is write a Rails application without using ActiveRecord (I’ve seen a few discussions about this but I don’t have any links). Not using ActiveRecord is done simply by not extending ActiveRecord::Base (or whatever, that class name is from memory). There has been a recent discussion on where to put the model in that case – I put mine under the lib directory, but vendor will work too. By not using ActiveRecord you are basically writing straight Ruby code to do what you need, so you’ll have to pay attention to transactional issues yourself. Unless you are happy using Webrick or Mongrel don’t try to hang onto information across requests unless it is serializable and included in the session object. If you cannot use the session object (as I cannot) then you have to use Webrick or Mongrel in production (and I’m happy to do so). Unit testing is going to be a pain (unless this was fixed in 1.1 you’ll have to create a dummy db to use Rails’ unit test capabilities). Another useful trick is to use Rails’ capability to re-load changed classes. The mechanism has apparently changed in 1.1 but in 1.0 it was done by using ‘require\_dependency’ rather than ‘require’. This all leaves aside any discussion of whether this is a good idea – it certainly has been for me, but… Cheers, Bob * * * Bob H. – blogs at \<[http://www.recursive.ca/](http://www.recursive.ca/) hutch/\> Recursive Design Inc. – [http://www.recursive.ca/](http://www.recursive.ca/) Raconteur – [http://www.raconteur.info/](http://www.raconteur.info/) xampl for Ruby – [http://rubyforge.org/projects/xampl/](http://rubyforge.org/projects/xampl/) ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_TSRichter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Michael\_TSRichter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Michael_TSRichter)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 12:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/driving-rails-from-disk-instead-of-sql/61610/4 "2006-05-26T12:46:24Z")
Well, the “business logic” does belong with the model code, but the directory name under which the model code is stored is completely arbitrary. To illustrate what I mean, if rails was written in German for German users, would the model directory still have to be called model? Shouldn’t it be called modell? So what the name of the directory is doesn’t matter… just do what’s most convenient, just so long as you keep it all together. -N ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_TSRichter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Michael\_TSRichter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Michael_TSRichter)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 10:22am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/driving-rails-from-disk-instead-of-sql/61610/5 "2006-05-26T10:22:15Z")
On 5/25/06, Bob H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Not using > ActiveRecord is done simply by not extending ActiveRecord::Base (or > whatever, that class name is from memory). There has been a recent > discussion on where to put the model in that case – I put mine under > the lib directory, but vendor will work too. IMHO your business logic belongs in the model directory, how you do persistence is irrelevant, while lib is for ‘utility’ code specific to your project, e.g. an ID3 tag reader or whatever. If your ID3 reader is substantial/interesting/mature enough to ship as a gem, it belongs in vendor.