Doesn't work with ActiveRecord::AttributeMethods::Serialization

[ingemar]

When using ActiveRecord::AttributeMethods::Serialization, columns doesn't get serialized properly.

[shioyama]

Yeah, I know Globalize does this, but I seem to remember the implementation is kind of nasty and breaks with AR releases. I'm not really eager to support this unless it's simple and clean.

[shioyama]

Can you explain exactly what you're doing with serialization? Do you want to translate a serialized attribute?

[ingemar]

Yes, I'm adding i18n to an existing project and stumbled upon this

# Rails 4.2.10
class SomeModel < ActiveRecord::Base
  serialize :aliases
end

So, a text column serialized to Array with ActiveRecord::Coders::YAMLColumn.

I'm really time strapped here so right now I'm running with this ugly hack, replacing .serialize:

class SomeModel < ActiveRecord::Base
  def self.aliases_coder
    @coder ||= ActiveRecord::Coders::YAMLColumn.new Array
  end

  def aliases=(array)
    aliases_backend.write(Mobility.locale, self.class.aliases_coder.dump(array))
    array
  end

  def aliases(options = {})
    options[:locale] ||= Mobility.locale
    self.class.aliases_coder.load(aliases_backend.read(options.delete(:locale), options)) || []
  end
end

Seem to work for now.

[shioyama]

Sorry, to clarify: you're not translating aliases? I don't see why Mobility would even be involved here.

[shioyama]

Oh I see, you want to translate serialized arrays...

My position is that if the problem is relevant, and it can be solved in a backend-independent way without hacking into AR internals, it might be a good idea. In this case it seems like it might be possible.

[ingemar]

Yes, correct. aliases is just the attribute name for the collection I need to translate.

The reason I haven't submitted a pull request is because I'm not sure what Mobility internals to use.

[ruby-fu-ninja]

I am also stuck with this problem after trying to move away from Globalize, @shioyama do you have any thoughts on how this problem could be solved?

[shioyama]

Sorry I haven't had time to look at this. I will say that I am very wary of adding special code to handle ActiveRecord features, since this is what makes Globalize so fragile and complicated. I'd prefer to keep things simple and focus on core features, which is why I haven't looked at this. If it involves stuff that may break with a Rails upgrade, I'll be pretty wary about introducing it since I don't want to have to deal with upgrading patches. (e.g. the dirty plugin always causes problems when Rails is upgraded. I'm keeping it since it's very popular.)

I can help someone implement this if you want to take a go at it. The basic steps would be:

• figure out what Globalize is doing and/or how ActiveRecord handles serialization
• isolate the part that is specific to the translation table approach in Globalize. I don't think this should be specific to how translations are stored.
• ideally, if it's independent of how translations are stored, then it can be implemented as a module that can be included in all AR models that use Mobility, like the uniqueness validator.

[ruby-fu-ninja]

no need to apologise @shioyama

It looks like Globalize inspects the serialized attribute and does a type check for ActiveRecord::Coders::YAMLColumn and in the true case calls serialize on the translated table class https://github.com/globalize/globalize/blob/f173aacbeee6b63837d00659cd9e577370dc3250/lib/globalize/active_record/act_macro.rb#L86

[shioyama]

Closing this, not something Mobility will implement. Happy to provide advice to anyone wanting to implement it as a plugin.