What columns does an ActiveRecord model have?
Something that bugs me about using ActiveRecord models is that I have to look in schema.rb file to remember what columns a model has.
Enter…What Column!
This is a little plugin I bunged together on the (long) train journey home from Scotland on Rails.
What it does is put a comment block in all of your ActiveRecord models detailing what columns this model has. The beauty is that it changes every time you run rake db:migrate
in development mode – so once it’s installed it will always be up to date. Your models will now look like this:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
# === List of columns ===
# id : integer
# name : string
# created_at : datetime
# updated_at : datetime
# =======================
end
Source code here:
http://github.com/thechrisoshow/what_column/
Installation
Install it like this:
script/plugin install git://github.com/thechrisoshow/what_column.git
After you’ve installed it run this rake task to create the initial comment blocks.
rake what_column:add
Every time you run rake db:migrate
from then on the comment blocks will be updated.
Uninstallation
If you get sick of What Column, and you want to uninstall it do this:
rake what:column:remove
Delete the plugin from the vendor/plugins/what_column
directory
Warning
This file writes stuff into your model files, and it may destroy stuff. So make sure you use a source control system – you know, just in case.