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[ANN] Ackbar - ActiveRecord Adapter for KirbyBase

Assaph Mehr

2/15/2006 12:45:00 AM

= About Ackbar

Ackbar is an adapter for ActiveRecord (the Rails ORM layer) to the KirbyBase
pure-ruby plain-text DBMS. Because KirbyBase does not support SQL, joins or
transactions, this is not a 100% fit. There are some changes to the ActiveRecord
interface (see below), but it may still be useful in some cases.

= URIs

Ackbar: http://ackbar.rub...
KirbyBase: http://www.netpromi.com/kirbybase...
Rails: http://www.rubyo...
Pimki: http://pimki.rub...

= Goals

Ackbar's project goals, in order of importance, are:
1. Support Pimki with a pure-ruby, cross-platform hassle-less install DBMS
2. An exercise for me to learn ActiveRecord inside out
3. Support other "shrink-wrapped" Rails projects with similar needs

As can be seen, the main reason I need Ackbar is so I distribute Pimki across
multiple platforms without requiring non-Ruby 3rd party libraries.
KirbyBase will
work wherever Ruby works, and so will Pimki. That alleviates the need
to repackage
other bits, end users will not have to install extra software, I have
full control
on the storage, the storage is in plain text. Just what I need to "shrink wrap"
a Rails project for end-user distribution.

= What's Covered

Ackbar currently passes through a small bootstrap test suite, and through about
80% of the ActiveRecord test suite. I will never pass 100% of the tests because
KirbyBase does not support all required functionality.

Ackbar includes a SQL fragment translator, so that simple cross-database code
should be maintainable. For example the following will work as expected,
Book.find :all, :conditions => "name = 'Pickaxe'"
Book.find :all, :conditions => ["name = ?", 'Pickaxe']
Additionally, you can also provide blocks:
Book.find :all, :conditions => lambda{|rec| rec.name == 'Pickaxe'}
or even:
Book.find(:all) {|rec| rec.name == 'Pickaxe'}

Most of these changes are around the #find method, bit some apply to #update and
associations. Basic SQL translation should work the same, but you can always
provide custom code to be used. See the CHANGELOG and the tests for examples.


= What's Not Covered

* Transactions
* Joins, and therefore Eager Associations
* Mixins
* Other plugins

On the todo list is support for mixins. It might even be possible to
rig something
to simulate joins and eager associations, but that is for a later
stage. Transactions
will obviously only be supported once they are supported by KirbyBase.

Additionally, there are numerous little changes to the standard behaviour. See
the CHANGELOG and the tests for more details. These may cause little
heart attacks
if you expect a standard SQL database.

It is also worth noting that other plugins that write SQL will not
work. You will
need to get a copy of them to your /vendors dir and modify the relevant parts.

= Installation

Simply:
gem install ackbar
or download the zip file from http://rubyforge.org/proje... and
just stick
kirbybase_adapter.rb in the Rails lib dir.

You will then need to add
require 'kirbybase_adapter'
in the config/environment.rb file of your project.

If you plan on multi-database development / deployment, you must
require the adapter
only if necessary:
require 'kirbybase_adapter' if
ActiveRecord::Base.configurations[RAILS_ENV]['adapter'] == 'kirbybase'

This is because Ackbar overrides certain methods in ActiveRecord::Base
and others.
These methods translate the standard SQL generation to method calls on
KirbyBase,
and obviously should not be overridden for regular DBs.


Please do not hesitate to contact me for questions, comments, whacks
on the head with a clue stick :-)

Cheers,
Assaph
6 Answers

Harold Hausman

2/15/2006 1:04:00 AM

0

Wow, best news in a while!

I can't wait to dig into this. A lot of Ruby love this Valentine Day.

Thank you,
-Harold

On 2/14/06, Assaph Mehr <assaph@gmail.com> wrote:
> = About Ackbar
>
> Ackbar is an adapter for ActiveRecord (the Rails ORM layer) to the KirbyBase
> pure-ruby plain-text DBMS. Because KirbyBase does not support SQL, joins or
> transactions, this is not a 100% fit. There are some changes to the ActiveRecord
> interface (see below), but it may still be useful in some cases.
>
> = URIs
>
> Ackbar: http://ackbar.rub...
> KirbyBase: http://www.netpromi.com/kirbybase...
> Rails: http://www.rubyo...
> Pimki: http://pimki.rub...
>
> = Goals
>
> Ackbar's project goals, in order of importance, are:
> 1. Support Pimki with a pure-ruby, cross-platform hassle-less install DBMS
> 2. An exercise for me to learn ActiveRecord inside out
> 3. Support other "shrink-wrapped" Rails projects with similar needs
>
> As can be seen, the main reason I need Ackbar is so I distribute Pimki across
> multiple platforms without requiring non-Ruby 3rd party libraries.
> KirbyBase will
> work wherever Ruby works, and so will Pimki. That alleviates the need
> to repackage
> other bits, end users will not have to install extra software, I have
> full control
> on the storage, the storage is in plain text. Just what I need to "shrink wrap"
> a Rails project for end-user distribution.
>
> = What's Covered
>
> Ackbar currently passes through a small bootstrap test suite, and through about
> 80% of the ActiveRecord test suite. I will never pass 100% of the tests because
> KirbyBase does not support all required functionality.
>
> Ackbar includes a SQL fragment translator, so that simple cross-database code
> should be maintainable. For example the following will work as expected,
> Book.find :all, :conditions => "name = 'Pickaxe'"
> Book.find :all, :conditions => ["name = ?", 'Pickaxe']
> Additionally, you can also provide blocks:
> Book.find :all, :conditions => lambda{|rec| rec.name == 'Pickaxe'}
> or even:
> Book.find(:all) {|rec| rec.name == 'Pickaxe'}
>
> Most of these changes are around the #find method, bit some apply to #update and
> associations. Basic SQL translation should work the same, but you can always
> provide custom code to be used. See the CHANGELOG and the tests for examples.
>
>
> = What's Not Covered
>
> * Transactions
> * Joins, and therefore Eager Associations
> * Mixins
> * Other plugins
>
> On the todo list is support for mixins. It might even be possible to
> rig something
> to simulate joins and eager associations, but that is for a later
> stage. Transactions
> will obviously only be supported once they are supported by KirbyBase.
>
> Additionally, there are numerous little changes to the standard behaviour See
> the CHANGELOG and the tests for more details. These may cause little
> heart attacks
> if you expect a standard SQL database.
>
> It is also worth noting that other plugins that write SQL will not
> work. You will
> need to get a copy of them to your /vendors dir and modify the relevant parts.
>
> = Installation
>
> Simply:
> gem install ackbar
> or download the zip file from http://rubyforge.org/proje... and
> just stick
> kirbybase_adapter.rb in the Rails lib dir.
>
> You will then need to add
> require 'kirbybase_adapter'
> in the config/environment.rb file of your project.
>
> If you plan on multi-database development / deployment, you must
> require the adapter
> only if necessary:
> require 'kirbybase_adapter' if
> ActiveRecord::Base.configurations[RAILS_ENV]['adapter'] == 'kirbybase'
>
> This is because Ackbar overrides certain methods in ActiveRecord::Base
> and others.
> These methods translate the standard SQL generation to method calls on
> KirbyBase,
> and obviously should not be overridden for regular DBs.
>
>
> Please do not hesitate to contact me for questions, comments, whacks
> on the head with a clue stick :-)
>
> Cheers,
> Assaph
>
>

Ezra Zygmuntowicz

2/15/2006 10:50:00 PM

0

Assaph-

I am trying to play with ackbar right now. What is the syntax for
database.yml in order to use the kirbybase adapter? Can you give me a
sample please?

Thanks-
-Ezra

Assaph Mehr

2/16/2006 12:14:00 AM

0

> I am trying to play with ackbar right now. What is the syntax for
> database.yml in order to use the kirbybase adapter? Can you give me a
> sample please?

That's a simple one to answer:

development:
adapter: kirbybase
database: db/dev_db

Te database should point to a directory, in which KirbyBase will store
the .tbl files. There are a few other options that can be passed to
KB, but essentially this is what I used for testing.

Cheers,
Assaph

Ezra Zygmuntowicz

2/16/2006 12:25:00 AM

0


On Feb 15, 2006, at 4:14 PM, Assaph Mehr wrote:

>> I am trying to play with ackbar right now. What is the
>> syntax for
>> database.yml in order to use the kirbybase adapter? Can you give me a
>> sample please?
>
> That's a simple one to answer:
>
> development:
> adapter: kirbybase
> database: db/dev_db
>
> Te database should point to a directory, in which KirbyBase will store
> the .tbl files. There are a few other options that can be passed to
> KB, but essentially this is what I used for testing.
>
> Cheers,
> Assaph
>

Thats what I thought and i already have that but I still get this
stack trace when i try to do anything with the db:

ezra:~/_book/kirby ez$ script/generate migration initial_schema
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.13.2/lib/active_record/
connection_adapters/abstract/connection_specification.rb:79:in
`establish_connection': database configuration specifies nonexistent
kirbybase adapter (ActiveRecord::AdapterNotFound)
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.13.2/lib/
active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/
connection_specification.rb:71:in `establish_connection'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.13.2/lib/
active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/
connection_specification.rb:66:in `establish_connection'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-1.0.0/lib/
initializer.rb:169:in `initialize_database'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-1.0.0/lib/
initializer.rb:83:in `process'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-1.0.0/lib/
initializer.rb:42:in `send'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-1.0.0/lib/
initializer.rb:42:in `run'
from ./script/../config/../config/environment.rb:10
from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:
18:in `require__'
from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:
18:in `require'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-1.2.5/lib/
active_support/dependencies.rb:214:in `require'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-1.0.0/lib/commands/
generate.rb:1
from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:
18:in `require__'
from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:
18:in `require'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-1.2.5/lib/
active_support/dependencies.rb:214:in `require'
from script/generate:3

Clues? Do i need to bootstrap the db somehow before I just make an
intial schema or what?

Thanks
-Ezra

Assaph Mehr

2/16/2006 1:10:00 AM

0

> ezra:~/_book/kirby ez$ script/generate migration initial_schema
> /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.13.2/lib/active_record/
> connection_adapters/abstract/connection_specification.rb:79:in
> `establish_connection': database configuration specifies nonexistent
> kirbybase adapter (ActiveRecord::AdapterNotFound)

Have you require'd kirbybase_adapter? You need to add the require in
the config/environment.rb.

Ezra Zygmuntowicz

2/16/2006 6:56:00 AM

0


On Feb 15, 2006, at 5:09 PM, Assaph Mehr wrote:

>> ezra:~/_book/kirby ez$ script/generate migration initial_schema
>> /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.13.2/lib/active_record/
>> connection_adapters/abstract/connection_specification.rb:79:in
>> `establish_connection': database configuration specifies nonexistent
>> kirbybase adapter (ActiveRecord::AdapterNotFound)
>
> Have you require'd kirbybase_adapter? You need to add the require in
> the config/environment.rb.
>

Yeah I tried that. I have the gem installed and I even tried putting
the kirbybase_adapter.rb in lib and it still didn't work same trace.
Anyway, I'll keep playing with it, I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Cheers-
-Ezra Zygmuntowicz
WebMaster
Yakima Herald-Republic Newspaper
http://yakima...
ezra@yakima-herald.com
blog: http://b...