The SchemaPlus family of gems provide various extensions and enhancements to ActiveRecord.

Listed alphabetically:

schema_auto_foreign_keys

schema_plus_foreign_keys | Extended support for foreign keys, including creation as column options, `:deferrable`, and SQLite3 support | Y [schema_plus_indexes](https://github.com/SchemaPlus/schema_plus_indexes) | Convenience and consistency in using indexes | Y [schema_plus_pg_indexes](https://github.com/SchemaPlus/schema_plus_pg_indexes) |PostgreSQL index features: `case_insenstive`, `expression` and `operator_class` | Y [schema_plus_tables](https://github.com/SchemaPlus/schema_plus_tables) | Convenience and consistency in using tables | Y [schema_plus_views](https://github.com/SchemaPlus/schema_plus_views) | Create and drop views in migrations | Y [schema_validations](https://github.com/SchemaPlus/schema_validations) | Automatically defines ActiveRecord validations based on database constraints |

See detailed documentation in each gem's README.

Is there some other capability you wish SchemaPlus had a gem for? Open an issue here. Or try implementing it yourself -- creating ActiveRecord extensions is easy and fun using SchemaPlus's tools schema_monkey and schema_plus_core!!

This is the README for schema_plus 2.0.0 (prelease)

which is under development in the master branch, and which supports Rails >= 4.2. For info about the stable 1.x releases which support Rails 3.1, 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2.0, see the schema_plus 1.x branch

The schema_plus gem is a wrapper that pulls in a common collection of gems from the SchemaPlus family. But you can feel free to mix and match to get just the gems you want.

Note: Prior to version 2.0, schema_plus was a single monolothic gem that implemented in itself all the features that are now included by the wrapper.

IN PROGRESS: In the prerelease versions of SchemaPlus 2.0, some features have yet to be migrated out to their own gems, and their code is still in the body of schema_plus. Those gems are greyed out in the list above. The documentation for their features is at the end of this README.

schema_plus 2.0 intends to be a completely backwards-compatible drop-in replacement for SchemaPlus 1.8.x, through restricted to ActiveRecord >= 4.2 and Ruby >= 2.1

If you find any incompatibilities, please report an issue!

In cases where ActiveRecord 4.2 has introduced features previously supported only by SchemaPlus, but using different names, the SchemaPlus 2.0 family of gems now issue deprecation warnings in favor of the rails form. The complete list of deprecations:

• Index definition deprecates these options:

  • :conditions => :where
  • :kind => :using

• drop_table deprecates this option:

  • cascade: true => force: :cascade

• Foreign key definitions deprecate options to :on_update and :on_delete:

  • :set_null => :nullify

• add_foreign_key and remove_foreign_key deprecate the method signature:

  • (from_table, columns, to_table, primary_keys, options) => (from_table, to_table, options)

• ForeignKeyDefinition deprecates accessors:

  • #table_name in favor of #from_table
  • #column_names in favor of Array.wrap(#column)
  • #references_column_names in favor of #primary_key
  • #references_table_name in favor of #to_table`

• IndexDefinition deprecates accessors:

  • #conditions in favor of #where
  • #kind in favor of #using.to_s

SchemaPlus 2.x is tested against all combinations of:

• ruby 2.1.5 with activerecord 4.2.0, using mysql2, sqlite3 or postgresql
• ruby 2.1.5 with activerecord 4.2.1, using mysql2, sqlite3 or postgresql

Install from http://rubygems.org via

$ gem install "schema_plus"

or in a Gemfile

gem "schema_plus"

• See CHANGELOG for per-version release notes.

• SchemaPlus was originally derived from several "Red Hill On Rails" plugins created by @harukizaemon

• SchemaPlus was created in 2011 by @mlomnicki and @ronen

• And lots of contributors since then.

NOTE The documentation in this README is leftover from the 1.x branch; the functionality is the same, but some of the core features of schema_plus (such as foreign keys) are now provided by ActiveRecord 4.2. schema_plus still provides extra functionality beyond AR 4.2, but the documentation needs to be updated to be clear what's an enhancement of AR 4.2 capabilities rather than completely new features.

SchemaPlus adds support for foreign key constraints. In fact, for the common convention that you name a column with suffix _id to indicate that it's a foreign key, SchemaPlus automatically defines the appropriate constraint.

SchemaPlus also creates foreign key constraints for rails' t.references or t.belongs_to, which take the singular of the referenced table name and implicitly create the column suffixed with _id.

You can explicitly specify whether or not to generate a foreign key constraint, and specify or override automatic options, using the :foreign_key keyword

Here are some examples:

t.integer :author_id                              # automatically references table 'authors', key id
t.integer :parent_id                              # special name parent_id automatically references its own table (for tree nodes)
t.integer :author_id, foreign_key: true           # same as default automatic behavior
t.integer :author,    foreign_key: true           # non-conventional column name needs to force creation, table name is assumed to be 'authors'
t.integer :author_id, foreign_key: false          # don't create a constraint

t.integer :author_id, foreign_key: { references: :authors }        # same as automatic behavior
t.integer :author,    foreign_key: { reference: :authors}          # same default name
t.integer :author_id, foreign_key: { references: [:authors, :id] } # same as automatic behavior
t.integer :author_id, foreign_key: { references: :people }         # override table name
t.integer :author_id, foreign_key: { references: [:people, :ssn] } # override table name and key
t.integer :author_id, foreign_key: { references: nil }             # don't create a constraint
t.integer :author_id, foreign_key: { name: "my_fk" }               # override default generated constraint name
t.integer :author_id, foreign_key: { on_delete: :cascade }
t.integer :author_id, foreign_key: { on_update: :set_null }
t.integer :author_id, foreign_key: { deferrable: true }
t.integer :author_id, foreign_key: { deferrable: :initially_deferred }

Of course the options can be combined, e.g.

t.integer :author_id, foreign_key: { name: "my_fk", on_delete: :no_action }

As a shorthand, all options except :name can be specified without placing them in a hash, e.g.

t.integer :author_id, on_delete: :cascade
t.integer :author_id, references: nil

The foreign key behavior can be configured globally (see Config) or per-table (see create_table).

To examine your foreign key constraints, connection.foreign_keys returns a list of foreign key constraints defined for a given table, and connection.reverse_foreign_keys returns a list of foreign key constraints that reference a given table. See doc at SchemaPlus::ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::ForeignKeyDefinition.

Foreign keys can cause issues for Rails utilities that delete or load data because referential integrity imposes a sequencing requirement that those utilities may not take into consideration. Monkey-patching may be required to address some of these issues. The Wiki article Making yaml_db work with foreign key constraints in PostgreSQL has some information that may be of assistance in resolving these issues.

SchemaPlus extends create_table ... force: true to use :cascade

When dumping schema.rb, SchemaPlus orders the views and tables in the schema dump alphabetically, but subject to the requirement that each table or view be defined before those that depend on it. This allows all foreign key constraints to be defined within the scope of the table definition. (Unless there are cyclical dependencies, in which case some foreign keys constraints must be defined later.)

Also, when dumping schema.rb, SchemaPlus dumps explicit foreign key definition statements rather than relying on the auto-creation behavior, for maximum clarity and for independence from global config. And correspondingly, when loading a schema, i.e. with the context of ActiveRecord::Schema.define, SchemaPlus ensures that auto creation of foreign key constraints is turned off regardless of the global setting. But if for some reason you are creating your schema.rb file by hand, and would like to take advantage of auto-creation of foreign key constraints, you can re-enable it:

ActiveRecord::Schema.define do
    SchemaPlus::ForeignKeys.config.auto_create = true
    SchemaPlus::ForeignKeys.config.auto_index = true

    create_table ...etc...
end