Patching enumerations_mixin gem for rails >=3.2.8

Question

enumerations_mixin gem depends on deprecated method

here's the guilty line

what would be correct approach to patch it?

Answer 1

Quite a lot of patching I am afraid. This method has been replaced by class_attribute, however it works slightly different. Previously it was enough to use write_inheritable_attribute to create new class param, now you need to declare it first and then assign value.

On line 17 it is using 'write_inheritable_attribute` to set those values. It should now read

class_attribute :"acts_enumerated_#{key}" unless respond_to? "acts_enumerated_#{key}"
self.send(:"acts_enumerated_#{key}=", options[key])

Then, everywhere it is using read_inheritable_attribute(:attribute_name) just use self.attribute_name.

The only problem with this is that 'read_inheritable_attribute` returned nil if attribute is not set and the approach above will throw an error. You will notice that all read methods has default value, like (line 56):

read_inheritable_attribute(:acts_enumerated_on_lookup_failure) || :enforce_strict_literals

You will need to look for all those defaults and enforce them within acts as enumerated method:

def acts_as_enumerated(options = {})
      valid_keys = [:conditions, :order, :on_lookup_failure]
      default_options = {<all the default values from the code>}
      options = default_options.merge options
      options.assert_valid_keys(*valid_keys)
      valid_keys.each do |key|
        write_inheritable_attribute("acts_enumerated_#{key.to_s}".to_sym, options[key]) if options.has_key? key
      end

However this is not a perfect design. I would probably define class_attribute enumerated_options within append_features method, put all the options there as a hash instead of creating class_attribute for each option. This is absolutely up to you though.

Also please notice that this gem has been written over 4 years ago, and this method might be not the only deprecated one. I am not entirely sure what this gem is supposed to do, but it might be easier to rather implement what you need rather than to use it.

Answer 2

Clone the gem's repo locally and use it in your rails project as a path to a local gem. So specify in your gemfile:

gem :enumerations_mixin, :path => '/local/path/to/gem'

When you will have the gem patched, fork it on github, replace gems origin in /local/path/to/gem/.git/config, push your changes to your fork, and replace that line in your gemfile to the follownig:

gem :enumerations_mixin, :github => 'your_acoount/enumerations_mixin'

Issue the pull-request to the root repo of the gem, and when the request will be accepted, replace that line in your gemfile to the follownig:

gem :enumerations_mixin, :github => 'protocool/enumerations_mixin'

When the gem will have been released the line can be replaced to:

gem :enumerations_mixin, '~> <new_verison>'