Object Version Control, or at least edit log

Rails
1

Hello all,

I need to create a object history, as I’ll have multiple editors for a
site i am working on. Of course it would be great to have the ability
to restore an object to its state and undo the damage due to a bad
editor, but I’ll settle for a system that will tell me who to blame.

Basically I want to track who changed what on what object. I would
like your input on the best way to do this, or someone to stop me if
its already been done.

My first thought, was to simply make the activity log and log the
“self.changed.to_yaml” to the database, but I would like more
information then that if possible, adding this along with the
“self.to_yaml” would provide semi-readable output on the changed
values but no details on the original values.

I would, if at all possible like to make it a bit more detailed, but
right now I’m looking for someone with a bit more experience in AR to
provide me with some tips/tricks.

Thanks,
Brian

2

On Feb 9, 11:48 am, PsiPro [email protected] wrote:

Thanks,
Brian

There’s http://wiki.github.com/collectiveidea/acts_as_audited/. That
might work for your use case.

3

On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 23:37, Erol F. [email protected]
wrote:

its already been done.

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.

Also might want to check out different database solutions - CouchDB
for instance has versioning built-in for all documents.

4

That looks like what I was planning on doing, but a little light on
the changed details.

Unless anyone has any other suggestion I’ll just have to write my own.

Brian

5

PsiPro wrote:

That looks like what I was planning on doing, but a little light on
the changed details.

What are you referring to? Please quote when replying; we can’t read
your mind. :slight_smile:

Unless anyone has any other suggestion I’ll just have to write my own.

There are others – for example, acts_as_versioned . You might want to
see which one Redmine uses. You probably don’t have to write your own.

Brian

Best,
–Â
Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

6

Erol F. wrote:

On Feb 9, 11:48�am, PsiPro [email protected] wrote:

Thanks,
Brian

There’s http://wiki.github.com/collectiveidea/acts_as_audited/. That
might work for your use case.

Yup. Or put something similar in a trigger. More work but more
airtight.

Best,
–Â
Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

7

You may want to take a look at vestal_versions:

Haven’t used it myself, but looks to be able to revert objects to
pretty much any previous version and show what changed between
arbitrary pairs of versions.

–Matt J.

8

Matt J. wrote:

You may want to take a look at vestal_versions:

GitHub - laserlemon/vestal_versions: Keep a DRY history of your ActiveRecord models' changes

Haven’t used it myself, but looks to be able to revert objects to
pretty much any previous version and show what changed between
arbitrary pairs of versions.

–Matt J.

Ooh, thanks! I’m writing a medical records app, so I’m likely to need
this soon.

Best,
–Â
Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

9

You may want to take a look at vestal_versions:

GitHub - laserlemon/vestal_versions: Keep a DRY history of your ActiveRecord models' changes

Haven’t used it myself, but looks to be able to revert objects to
pretty much any previous version and show what changed between
arbitrary pairs of versions.

–Matt J.

I have to agree, that looks great. Thanks for the link.

Brian

10

You may want to take a look at vestal_versions:

GitHub - laserlemon/vestal_versions: Keep a DRY history of your ActiveRecord models' changes

Haven’t used it myself, but looks to be able to revert objects to
pretty much any previous version and show what changed between
arbitrary pairs of versions.

–Matt J.

So I looked into Vestal Versions and it appears there is an issue with
it using the class name Tag

I already have a tagging and tags relationship and their use of those
names is causing problems with Thinking Sphinx and Formtastic

When thinking sphinx tries to index tag_ids, or when formtastic
queries the tag relationship its talking to the VestalVersions model,
which doesn’t talk like a normal relationship. I end up with the
following error:

“`reflect_on_association’ for VestalVersions::Tagging:Module”

If I remove thinking sphinx’s index on tag_ids it will be all fine and
dandy until formtastic throws the same error.

Brian