Data import and export for rails, to assist in seeding development databases from production.

Seedable is a mixin to select groups of objects, and export them via serialized JSON, to be reimported later. The goal, is less to maintain a consistent database state, but for quick dumping and restoring of data between environments, to seed your database.

Using Seedable is easy!

Add the gem.

gem 'seedable'

Include the module:

include Seedable

In the models you want to export together, place the following:

seedable

To export, call:

json = @garage.to_seedable

By default, seedable will traverse all active_record associations and export all of their attributes. To exclude associations, do the following:

seedable :include_associations => [:cars, :bikes]

You can also call it after the fact:

Garage.include_associations([:cars])

To filter attributes:

seedable :filter_attributes => [:id]

You can also call it after the fact:

Garage.filter_attributes([:id])

You can also export an array of disperse object types:

[@garage, @car, @garage2, @bike].to_seedable

To import:

Garage.from_seedable(json)

or, if you have JSON from a unknown object type and want it to return the proper object type:

Seedable.from_seedable(garage_json) # Returns Garage object.

or, an array of different object types:

json = [@garage, @car, @garage2, @bike].to_seedable
Seedable.from_seedable(json) # Returns array of [Garage, Car, Garage, Bike]

This is the first release, and yes, there are a bunch of caveats.

1. Compatible and tested under rails 3.1 and rails-master.

2. Compatible and tested under ruby 1.9.2.

1. Importing objects with associated objects by primary key will only work on rails master. This is because the code relies on mass assignment changes/abstractions destined for rails-3.2.x.

Seedable is Copyright © 2011 Christopher Meiklejohn. It is free software, and may be redistributed under the terms specified in the LICENSE file.

The seedable gem was written by Christopher Meiklejohn from Swipely, Inc..