System-wide db-driven config

Rails
1

Hi folks,

Just after a ‘best-practise’ pointer with this one really;

I have a ‘setup’ model for my application which only has a single
record, holding the current settings of the app e.g. its mode
(maintenance, normal, readonly) etc

I need to check the app’s settings, at least once per page-load,
sometimes more.

I know I could do this easily by pulling the record each time but was
wondering if using global variables or something like a helper would
be better? I do need to make these calls in both the controllers and
views however.

Thanks in advance,

Paul

2

I use a DB table but store one value per setting. Then in my code I
just access whichever record I need to gain access to the value. This
gives me great flexibility to maintain the setting values. Then I
access the table only when needed. It might not be as fast as having
all values retrieved at once but in my case it does not make any real
difference in the performance of the application.