Changes in version 1.0.9:

• Fix incorrect integer column values (only affecting some dbf files)
• Add CSV export

Blame automatically userstamps create and update operations if the table has columns named created_by and/or updated_by.

Installation:

ruby script/plugin install git://github.com/infused/blame.git

Blame assumes that you are using restful-authentication and expects User.current_user to return the current user. You can override this behavior by overriding the default userstamp_object method in ActiveRecord::Base or in any of your models. For example, maybe you just want to find the current user bases on the a session variable:

# In environment.rb
class ActiveRecord::Base
  def userstamp_object
    User.find(session[:user_id])
  end
end

Maybe you don’t like the default column names of created_by/updated_by. You can customize the column names globally or for individual models:

# Globally in environment.rb
ActiveRecord::Base.created_userstamp_column = :creator_id

# In a model definition
class Subscription
  self.created_userstamp_column = :creator_id
  self.updated_userstamp_column = :updater_id
end

Automatic userstamping can be turned off by setting record_userstamps:

# Globally in environment.rb
ActiveRecord::Base.record_userstamps = false

# In a model definition
class Subscription
  self.record_userstamps = false
end

Blame also adds a migration helper which will add the created_by and updated_by columns (or your custom column names) to your table:

create_table :widgets do |t|
  t.string :name
  t.timestamps
  t.userstamps
end

Changes in version 1.0.5:

• Strip non-ascii characters from column names

Changes in version 1.0.2:

• Fixes a bug when reading Visual Foxpro memo files.

Dylan at 1 day old:

• New find method
• Full compatibility with the two flavors of memo file
• Two modes of operation:
  • In memory (default): All records are loaded into memory on the first
    request. Records are retrieved from memory for all subsequent requests.
  • File I/O: All records are retrieved from disk on every request
• Improved documentation and more usage examples

Let’s say you have an action called update that you want to protect from anything but a POST. I like to do it like this:

Now if someone tries to hit the update action with anything other than a POST, an error message will be displayed and the response headers will contain (among other things):

In my opinion, this is a better way to go than redirecting to another action because the use of an improper HTTP method is most likely the result of either programmer error or malicious intent. By redirecting to another page, you are making it much easier to for somebody to take your site down with a denial of service attack and if it’s a programming error, you’ll locate the problem faster.

You should also make sure that you have a functional test for this behavior:

def test_invalid_update_methods
  [:get, :put, :delete].each do |http_method|
    send http_method, :update
    assert_response 405
    assert_equal 'POST', @response.headers['Allow']
    assert_equal '405 HTTP POST required', @response.body
  end
end

Additional Resources

• HTTP 1.1: Status Code Definitions
• HTTP 1.1: Header Field Definitions
• Rails API Documentation: Verification

Registration just opened a couple of hours ago. This year the registration fee is higher and the venue is a lot larger so it probably won’t sell out as quickly as last year. But, if you want to go, I would sign up soon. I already did.

Updates:

• 7 hours later: I’m glad I bought mine early, because they might sell out faster than last year.
• 3 days later: RailsConf ‘07 sells faster than any other O’Reilly conference
• 9 days later: close to 75% of the tickets have now been sold.
• 22 days later: Sold out

I’ll be selling the old one as soon as it comes back. It’s an original 15″ MacBook Pro running at 2.0GHz with 2GB of RAM and the 100GB hard drive. It’s 10 months old, so it has over 2 years left on the AppleCare warranty. Make me an offer if you’re interested in buying it. Serious offers only please. If I don’t get any acceptable offers by next week, I’ll put it up for sale on ebay.

Update: The MBP just arrived back from Apple and the fan has been fixed. They also replaced the new top assembly in order to fix a “crunchy” trackpad button. This means that, while the keyboard is not new and has had my grubby fingers all over it, the area where your delicate hands rest is beautiful virgin aluminum.