Migrating legacy dataA way to migrate data into your rails app

About me

Patrick Hüsler

Freelance developer @ http://www.huesler-informatik.ch

Apple enthusiast

Surfing and Kung Fu

Legacy...

Us...

ConsiderationsRDBMS

Keys

Philosophy

Structure

Naming

Connect?

Retrieve?

Integrate?

Map?

Validate?

Tasks

Connect

database adapter (hopefully)

add it to database.yml

set_table_name

set_primary_key

set_sequence_name

define associations

RetrieveCreate corresponding AR models

Tell AR to connect to the legacy database

Use AR’s features to adjust things like table name, primary key etc

Set up associations

1 class Legacy::User < ActiveRecord::Base 2 3 establish_connection("legacydb") 4 set_table_name :users 5 6 belongs_to :login, :class_name => "Legacy::Login" 7 end

1 class Legacy::Base < ActiveRecord::Base 2 self.abstract_class = true 3 establish_connection("legacydb") 4 end 5 6 class Legacy::User < Legacy::Base 7 belongs_to :login, :class_name => "Legacy::Login" 8 end 9 10

IntegratePut models in their own namespace to avoid collisions

Put them in their own folder

1 class Legacy::Base < ActiveRecord::Base 2 self.abstract_class = true 3 establish_connection("legacydb") 4 end 5 6 class Legacy::User < Legacy::Base 7 belongs_to :login, :class_name => "Legacy::Login" 8 end 9 10

MapLet the models handle the mapping

1 class Legacy::Country < Legacy::Base 2 3 has_many :regions, :class_name => "Legacy::Region" 4 5 def code 6 abbrev 7 end 8 end

ValidateJust use Active Record

Create finders and scopes to only migrate the data you want

Use memoization to speed up retrieval (e.g. fetch only valid records)

1 class Legacy::User < Legacy::Base 2 belongs_to :login, :class_name => "Legacy::Login" 3 4 named_scope :active , :conditions => ["status = 1"] 5 6 validates_uniqueness_of :email, :scope => :status 7 validates_presence_of :first_name 8 validates_associated :login 9 end

MigrateUse migrators/importers

1 # General Importer 2 # Code removed for the sake of this example 3 class Migration::Importer 4 def initialize(_entity_to_migrate,_migrated_entity) 5 @entity_to_migrate = _entity_to_migrate 6 @migrated_entity = _migrated_entity 7 end 8 9 def migrate 10 @migrated_entity.attributes.symbolize_keys.keys.each do |attr| 11 if @entity_to_migrate.respond_to?(attr) 12 @migrated_entity.send("#{attr}=",@entity_to_migrate.send(attr)) 13 end 14 end 15 @migrated_entity 16 end 17 end

1 # General Importer 2 # Lines removed for the sake of this example 3 class Migration::Importer 4 def self.migrate_all(source_class,entity_name = nil) 5 migrate_all_from_collection(source_class.send(:all),entity_name) 6 end 7 8 def self.migrate_all_from_collection(collection,entity_name = nil) 9 entity_name ||= collection.first.class.to_s.pluralize 10 collection.each do |entity| 11 result = self.new(entity).migrate 12 result.save! 13 end 14 end 15 end

1 class Migration::UserImporter < Migration::Importer 2 def initialize(user) 3 super(user,User.new) 4 end 5 6 def self.migrate_all 7 migrate_all_from_collection(Legacy::User.valid) 8 end 9 end

TestIntegrates seamlessly with your rails test suit

A separate folder helps to organize it

1 require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../../spec_helper' 2 3 describe Migration::UserImporter do 4 5 before(:all) do 6 # setup your test here 7 end 8 9 it "should map email address" do 10 @migrated_user.email.should equal(@user_to_migrate.email) 11 end 12 13 it "should map login to old login" do 14 @migrated_user.old_login.should == @user_to_migrate.login.login 15 end 16 17 it "should not have an empty salt" do 18 @migrated_user.salt.should_not be_blank 19 end 20 21 end

AutomateRake to the rescue

Let it deal with dependencies

1 namespace :legacy do 2 namespace :data do 3 desc "import data from legacy schema" 4 task :import => :environment do 5 Rake::Task['legacy:data:import:users'].invoke 6 end 7 namespace :import do 8 task :fields_of_study do 9 puts "Migrating Fields of study" 10 Migration::FieldOfStudyImporter.migrate_all 11 puts "Done migrating fields of study" 12 end 13 14 task :universities do 15 puts "Migrating universities" 16 Migration::UniversityImporter.migrate_all 17 puts "Done migrating universities" 18 end 19 20 task :users => [:fields_of_study,:universities] do 21 puts "Migrating users" 22 Migration::UserImporter.migrate_all 23 puts "Done migrating users" 24 end 25 end 26 end 27 end

DeployJust put in deploy.rb and let capistrano handle the rest

1 namespace :deploy do 2 desc "Migrate data" 3 task :migrate_legacy_data, :roles => :app do 4 # Actual one liner that would not fit 5 # on a presentation screen 6 command = "cd #{deploy_to}/current;" 7 command << "RAILS_ENV='production' " 8 command << "/usr/bin/rake legacy:data:import" 9 run command 10 end 11 end

Questions?

Available for hire

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