In Rails, how should I implement a Status field for a Tasks app - integer or enum?

Posted by Doug on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Doug
Published on 2010-04-16T05:49:37Z Indexed on 2010/04/16 5:53 UTC
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For a Rails 3.0 Todo app, I have a Tasks model with a Status field. What's the best way to store the Status field data (field type) and still display a human-readable version in a view (HTML table)? Status can be:

0 = Normal
1 = Active
2 = Completed

Right now I have this:

Rails Schema Here:

create_table "tasks", :force => true do |t|
t.integer "status", :limit => 1, :default => 0, :null => false

Rails Model Here:

class Task < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates_inclusion_of :status, :in => 0..2,
    :message => "{{value}} must be 0, 1, or 2"

Rails View Here:

<h1>Listing tasks</h1>

<table>
  <tr>
    <th>Status</th>
    <th>Name</th>
    <th></th>
    <th></th>
    <th></th>
  </tr>

<% @tasks.each do |task| %>
  <tr>
    <td><%= task.status %></td>
    <td><%= task.name %></td>
    <td><%= link_to 'Show', task %></td>
    <td><%= link_to 'Edit', edit_task_path(task) %></td>
    <td><%= link_to 'Delete', task, :confirm => 'Are you sure?', :method => :delete %></td>
  </tr>
<% end %>
</table>

Requirements

  1. Store a Task's status in the db such that the values are easily localizable, i.e. I'm not sure I want to store "normal", "active", "completed" as a string field.

  2. Solution must work with Rails 3.0.

Questions:

  1. Should I store the field as an integer (see above)? If so, how do I display the correct human readable status in an HTML table in my Rails view, e.g. show "Active" instead of "1" in the HTML table.

  2. Should I use an enum? If so, is this easy to localize later?

  3. Should I use straight strings, e.g. "Normal", "Active", "Completed"

  4. Can you provide a quick code sample of the view helper, controller or view code to make this work?

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