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Almost a year ago, hirb started as an itch to get mysql-like tables for Rails’ ActiveRecord models. Now, hirb 0.3.0 provides table views for ten additional database gems. Whether you use hirb with couch, mongo, riak or any of the databases supported by sequel or datamapper, hirb essentially turns irb into a database-agnostic database shell.

Database Gems

Here are the list of additional database gems and their modules/classes that now have table views:

• datamapper: DataMapper::Resource
• sequel: Sequel::Model
• friendly: Friendly::Document
• mongomapper: MongoMapper::Document, MongoMapper::EmbeddedDocument
• mongoid: Mongoid::Document
• couch_foo: CouchFoo::Base
• couchrest: CouchRest::ExtendedDocument
• couch_potato: CouchPotato::Persistence
• ripple: Ripple::Document
• dbi: DBI::Row

Examples

Here’s all you need in your ~/.irbrc for hirb to work with the above gems and the following examples:

  require 'rubygems'
  require 'hirb'
  Hirb.enable

Keep in mind that while that the following examples are simple, your models/tables can be as complex as you’d like and hirb will still render your tables cleanly.

Sequel

For this example, you need to have sqlite3 installed.

  $ sudo gem install sqlite3-ruby sequel
  $ irb -rubygems -rsequel

  # Setup db and a model
  >> DB = Sequel.sqlite
  => #< Sequel::SQLite::Database: "sqlite:/">
  >> DB.create_table(:urls) { primary_key :id; String :name }
  => []
  >> class Url < Sequel::Model; end
  => nil

  # Nicely formatted tables!
  >> Url.create :name=>'example.com'
  +----+-------------+
  | id | name        |
  +----+-------------+
  | 1  | example.com |
  +----+-------------+
  1 row in set
  # Same as above
  >> Url.all

DataMapper

For this example, you need to have sqlite3 installed.

  $ sudo gem install sqlite3-ruby dm-core do_sqlite3
  $ irb -rubygems -rdm-core

  # Setup db and a model
  >> DataMapper.setup(:default, 'sqlite3::memory:')
  => #< DataMapper::Adapters::Sqlite3Adapter:0x188ceac ... >
  >> class Url
  >>  include DataMapper::Resource
  >>  property :id, Serial
  >>  property :name, String
  >> end
  => #< DataMapper::Property @model=Url @name=:name>
  >> Url.auto_migrate!
  => true

  # Nicely formatted tables!
  >> Url.create :name=>'example.com'
  +----+-------------+
  | id | name        |
  +----+-------------+
  | 1  | example.com |
  +----+-------------+
  1 row in set
  # Same as above
  >> Url.all

MongoMapper

For this example you need to have MongoDB installed.

  $ sudo gem install mongo_mapper
  $ irb -rubygems -rmongo_mapper

  # Setup db and a model
  >> MongoMapper.connection = Mongo::Connection.new
  => #< Mongo::Connection:0x1123d28 ... >
  >> MongoMapper.database = 'test'
  => 'test'
  >> class Url
  >>   include MongoMapper::Document
  >>   key :name, String
  >> end
  => #< MongoMapper::Plugins::Keys::Key:0x5a3520 ... >

  # Nicely formatted tables!
  >> Url.create :name=>'example.com'
  +-------------+--------------------------+
  | name        | _id                      |
  +-------------+--------------------------+
  | example.com | 4b97cf2978c2ec2854000001 |
  +-------------+--------------------------+
  1 row in set
  # Same as above
  >> Url.all

CouchRest

For this example you need to have CouchDB installed.

  $ sudo gem install couchrest
  $ irb -rubygems -rcouchrest

  # Setup db and a model
  >> class Url < CouchRest::ExtendedDocument
  >>   property :name
  >>   view_by :name
  >> end
  => false
  >> Url.database = CouchRest.database("http://127.0.0.1:5984/urls")
  => #< CouchRest::Database:0x170541c ... >

  # Nicely formatted tables!
  >> Url.create :name=>'example.com'
  +----------------------------------+-------------+
  | _id                              | name        |
  +----------------------------------+-------------+
  | af990a562a9a96703dd6ef0442a73db8 | example.com |
  +----------------------------------+-------------+
  1 row in set
  # Same as above
  >> Url.all  

Dynamic Views

Creating Them

All default views for the new database gems are due to hirb’s dynamic views. So what if you’re using a database gem that isn’t supported? Let’s answer this using friendly as an example (even though hirb already supports it):

1. Identify the module or class that the database gem uses to define models. For friendly, this module is Friendly::Document.
2. Determine what table options to pass to tables and how to generate them from the database gem’s model/table object. Although you can define as many options as you want, you must define the :fields option. To generate fields for a given friendly model object: model.attributes.keys
3. Using the last two steps, define a dynamic view using Hirb.add_dynamic_view that returns a hash of table options:

  Hirb.add_dynamic_view("Friendly::Document", :helper=>:auto_table) {|obj|
    {:fields=>obj.class.attributes.keys}
  }

Read the docs for more about dynamic views.

Submitting Them

If you’ve created a dynamic view for a somewhat popular database gem, feel free to fork and add it to hirb’s default dynamic views. Since hirb’s default dynamic views are in module form, read the docs to understand how to write them. Although I do appreciate any forking, I’m looking mainly to add default views for commonly used database gems.