Serialization example

ActiveRecord serialization has been available since Rails 3.0. (The more advanced ActiveRecord storage has been available since Rails 3.2). This enables you to store and retrieve raw ruby objects in the database.

Using this feature is as simple as telling active_record which field(s) should be serialized:

class MyModel < ActiveRecord::Base
  serialize :my_field
end

Example: Storing the environment info in a single database field using serialization, so that we dont have to create separate fields for each one.

config.store_environment_info do |storage,env|
  storage[:env_info] = {
  :path_info => env["PATH_INFO"],
  :query_string => env["QUERY_STRING"],
  :remote_addr => env["REMOTE_ADDR"],
  :remote_host => env["REMOTE_HOST"],
  :request_method => env["REQUEST_METHOD"],
  :request_uri => env["REQUEST_URI"],
  :script_name => env["SCRIPT_NAME"],
  :server_name => env["SERVER_NAME"],
  :server_port => env["SERVER_PORT"]
  }
end

# Monkey patching the model that comes with rails_exception_handler to use serialization:
config.after_initialize do
  ErrorMessage.send(:serialize, :env_info)
end