Migration and Enum w/ MySQL

Rails
1

I know its not kindly looked upon for using enum w/ mysql, but how
would I do this using the rails migration? or is it even possible? I
can’t seem to find this on any sites/books about rails migration. I
was simply wanting 2 options of ‘Y’,‘N’

Ah, but how I love RoR… today was my first ‘real’ day outside of
tutorials. And glad to just be joining the group!

-Salo

2

On 05/09/06, salo [email protected] wrote:

I know its not kindly looked upon for using enum w/ mysql, but how
would I do this using the rails migration? or is it even possible? I
can’t seem to find this on any sites/books about rails migration. I
was simply wanting 2 options of ‘Y’,‘N’

Doesn’t mysql have a boolean type?

–
Rasputin :: Jack of All Trades - Master of Nuns
http://number9.hellooperator.net/

3

Sadly it does not, and the MySQL way to do boolean is to use enumerate
Y/N,
or at least that’s the use I saw most suggested when I was first
starting to
learn to use MySQL databases. The easiest way to handle this would
honestly
be to convert your enum columns into single bit integers (Integer :size
=>
1). But this may not be an option to you depending on who controls the
data. Your only other option, I believe, would be to either write, or
find,
a ror to mysql driver that converts all boolean requests to the database
from 1/0 to Y/N.

Booleans are a tricky thing to work with in RoR. The idea is to make
your
application database agnostic, but because of certain quirks, e.g.
Oracle
and mysql databases not having boolean options, it’s a little hard to
reach
RoR nirvana. The accepted practice seems to be to use single bit
integers,
which is why I suggested the change.

On 9/5/06, Dick D. [email protected] wrote:

–
Rasputin :: Jack of All Trades - Master of Nuns
http://number9.hellooperator.net/

–
Mike W.
Web D.
UW-Eau Claire

4

On 9/5/06, Mike W. [email protected] wrote:

Sadly it does not, and the MySQL way to do boolean is to use enumerate
Y/N,

MySQL doesn’t have a native boolean type, but it will silently convert
columns declared boolean to tinyint(1), which Rails recognizes as
de-facto
boolean.

jeremy

5

On 05/09/06, Mike W. [email protected] wrote:

application database agnostic, but because of certain quirks, e.g. Oracle
and mysql databases not having boolean options, it’s a little hard to reach
RoR nirvana. The accepted practice seems to be to use single bit integers,
which is why I suggested the change.

Makes sense to me to do any required conversion in the connection
adapter -
also explains why check_box returns 0 and 1 instead of the (to me) more
intuitive true/false.

–
Rasputin :: Jack of All Trades - Master of Nuns
http://number9.hellooperator.net/

6

I’ll give that a go right now. It would be nice if rails could detect
true / false with the options instead of declaring 1=true 0=false (or
maybe it can and I don’t know about it :slight_smile:

Thanks for the input…

7

check the API, but I believe that you can specify, for checkboxes, what
value it takes in and returns.

check_box(object_name, method, options = {}, checked_value = “1”,
unchecked_value = “0”)

as you can see, you can change the checked_value and unchecked_value to
work
with your interface. So you could create your checkboxes using:

check_box(model, method, {}, “Y”, “N”)

On 9/5/06, Dick D. [email protected] wrote:

=>

and mysql databases not having boolean options, it’s a little hard to
–
Rasputin :: Jack of All Trades - Master of Nuns
http://number9.hellooperator.net/

–
Mike W.
Web D.
UW-Eau Claire

8

On 9/5/06, salo [email protected] wrote:

-Salo
My team had some issues with this that you might be interested in.
The short version: enums and migrations don’t mix well at all - avoid.

long version:
http://www.robsanheim.com/2006/08/24/rails-schema-dumper-mysql-enums-bad-for-business/

9

Rob S. wrote:

On 9/5/06, salo [email protected] wrote:

-Salo
My team had some issues with this that you might be interested in.
The short version: enums and migrations don’t mix well at all - avoid.

Thanks for confirming that, I have the same problem, and my enum is not
‘true’, ‘false’ either.

I just simple not to use migration. I am still use my SQL script, I am
OK.

10

It’s funny that I found your site with that information on google
before you posted here…

I’m starting to do just that: avoid enums and migrations, but I feel
that this is something that should change in the future of RoR.

-Salo