README.md

furcate

[ verb fur-keyt ] to form a fork; branch.

When you want to enable your users to "branch" and "merge" data the same way you branch and merge code, then furcate is for you. It replaces ActiveRecord::Base on your models, storing each change to the model in a separate row in the database. Changes are recorded as commits. Together they form snapshots of the data your users interact with.

Gems like paper_trail and audited don't offer branching and merging. And purpose-built datastore tools like TerminusDB and Dolt don't have production-ready SaaS offerings, and also seem to want collaboration to happen at the data level, rather than the app level, sending us straight back to the early 2000's when the database was the API and business operation was closely coupled to the schema making changes impossible.

Furcate operates at the software level, using off-the-shelf, well known relational databases to back the git-like versioning of data along with branching and merging that so many collaborative apps need in today's internet.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'furcate'

And then execute:

$ bundle install

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install furcate

Usage

require 'furcate'

class Team < Furcate::Leaf
end

team = Team.create("The A Team") 

#switch to a new limb and remove the team
Furcate.create_and_switch_to_limb("cleanup branch")
team.delete

#switch back to the main limb, team is restored
Furcate.switch_to_limb("main")

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and the created tag, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/TildeWill/furcate. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the Furcate project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.