Ruby One-Liners

#removes double quotes at beginning and end of string
some_string.gsub!(/\A"(.*)"\z/m, '\1')

#turns ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound into active_record_not_found
Klass.to_s.delete(':').gsub( /([A-Za-z])([A-Z])/, '\1' << '_' << '\2' ).downcase

Easy Import from CSV or PSV to ActiveRecord

More late night coding has produced...

A mixin to help me import data from a KnowWho data export of legislative data!

The KnowWho flat files are either CSV or PSV. I used rake tasks to do the import. Here's the rake task for the house:

  #The column order in the KnowWho CSV/PSV file
  #"ZipS"|"ZipL"|"LowS"|"LowL"|"HighS"|"HighL"|"District"|"DistrictDesc"|"Member"|"Prefix"|"FirstName"|"MiddleName"|"LastName"|"Suffix"|"Tag"|"PartyDesc"|
  # 0      1      2      3      4       5       6          7              8        9        10          12           13         14       16    17         
  #"Room"|"Building"|"Street"|"City"|"State"|"ZipCode"|"Telephone"|"MemberID"|"PersonID"
  # 18     19         20       21     22      23        24          25         26       
  desc "import KnowWho House PSV"
  task :house_psv => :environment do
    day = "2007-10-08".to_date
    yell_psv("rake import:house BEGINS at " + Time.now.strftime("%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %p"), day, "House")
    puts "rake import:house BEGINS at " + Time.now.strftime("%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %p")
    require 'fastercsv'
    file = "#{RAILS_ROOT}/lib/psv/" + day.strftime("%Y_%m_%d") + "/Zip9Digit_USHouse_PSV_100807.txt"
    yell_psv("Importing file: " + file, day, "House")
    count = 1
    arr = Array.new
    
    #Optimize the party query
    parts = ["Democratic Party","Republican Party"]
    parties = PoliticalParty.find(:all, :conditions => ["name in (?)", parts])
    
    FasterCSV.foreach(file, :col_sep => "|", 
                           :headers => :first_row,:return_headers => true,
                           :skip_blanks => true ) do |row|
      puts "CSV ROW: #{count.to_s}"
      unless row.header_row?
        if row['LastName'] == 'Vacant' && row['FirstName'].blank?
          yell_psv("Vacant!", day, "House")
          puts "Vacant!"
          leader_id = nil
        else
          party = parties.select {|x| x.name == row['PartyDesc']}[0]
          political_party = party.blank? ? PoliticalParty.find_or_create_by_row(row, day) : party
          leader = Leader.find_or_create_by_row(row, day, political_party.id)
          leader_id = leader.id
        end
        district = HouseDistrict.find_or_create_by_row(row, day)
        zip_range = ZipRange.find_or_create_by_row(row, day, district.id)
        position = Position.find_or_create_representative(row, day, district.id, leader_id, Department.find_by_name("United States House of Representatives").id)
        addr = Address.new(:street1=>row['Building'],:street2=>['Room'],:city=>row['City'],:state=>row['State'],
                            :postal_code=>row['ZipCode'],:country=>'USA')
        phone = row['Telephone'].blank? ? nil : PhoneNumber.new(:number_type=>"default",:number=>row['Telephone'])
        position.addresses << addr unless addr.nil?
        position.phone_numbers << phone unless phone.nil?
      else
        puts "This is the Header Row"
      end
      count+=1
    end
    yell_psv("rake import:house ENDS at " + Time.now.strftime("%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %p"), day, "House")
    puts "rake import:house ENDS at " + Time.now.strftime("%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %p")
  end

As you can see I am importing a single flat file of data into many different tables.
As an example here is my Position class:

class Position < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates_uniqueness_of :name
  validates_uniqueness_of :house_district_id, :allow_nil => true
  validates_uniqueness_of :senate_district_id, :allow_nil => true
  validates_presence_of :name, :department_id
  acts_as_addressable
  acts_as_phoneable

  belongs_to :department
  belongs_to :house_district
  belongs_to :senate_district
  belongs_to :leader

  # Add methods from ImportObject as class level methods (for instance level use include)
  extend ImportObject

  #"District"|"DistrictDesc"|"Room"|"Building"|
  # 4          5              14     15        
  def self.find_or_create_senator(row, day, district_id, leader_id, department_id)
    i = row['District']
    obj = self.find_by_name(i)
    hash = { "room" => row['Room'], "building" => row['Building'].split('- ')[1], "building_cd" => row['Building'].split('- ')[0], 
              "name" => row['District'], "department_id" => department_id,
              "office_name" => row['DistrictDesc'], "senate_district_id" => district_id, "leader_id" => leader_id, "enabled" => true, 
              "data_date" => day, "data_source" => "KnowWho"}
    del_arr = ["name", "data_source"]
    return self.import_object(row, day, obj, hash, i, del_arr)
  end

  #"District"|"DistrictDesc"|"Room"|"Building"|
  # 4          5              14     15        
  def self.find_or_create_representative(row, day, district_id, leader_id, department_id)
    i = row['District']
    obj = self.find_by_name(i)
    hash = { "room" => row['Room'], "building" => row['Building'].split('- ')[1], "building_cd" => row['Building'].split('- ')[0], 
              "name" => row['District'], "department_id" => department_id,
              "office_name" => row['DistrictDesc'], "house_district_id" => district_id, "leader_id" => leader_id, "enabled" => true, 
              "data_date" => day, "data_source" => "KnowWho"}
    del_arr = ["name", "data_source"]
    return self.import_object(row, day, obj, hash, i, del_arr)
  end
end

And here's the all important mixin which gives each of my classes the ability to seamlessly import the ActiveRecord objects. I've imported several hundred thousand rows this way and nary a problem! This goes in a file called ImportObject.rb in the lib/ directory of the project, and is extended/included on a per model basis.

module ImportObject
  def self.included(base)
    # Initialize module.
  end

  def import_object(row, day, obj, hash, lookup_key, del_arr, skip = false)
    klasss = self.to_s
    if obj.blank?
      yell_psv(klasss + " #{lookup_key} not found, creating new:", day, klasss)
      puts klasss + " #{lookup_key} not found, creating new:"
      obj = self.new
      obj.attributes = obj.attributes.merge(hash)
      if obj.save
        puts klasss + " #{lookup_key} created"
        yell_psv(klasss + " #{lookup_key} created.", day, klasss)
      else
        puts klasss + " #{lookup_key} falied to create."
        yell_psv(klasss + " #{lookup_key} failed to create.", day, klasss)
      end
      return obj
    elsif obj.data_date.is_a?(Date) && obj.data_date < day && !skip
      del_arr.each {|x| hash.delete(x)}
      obj.attributes = obj.attributes.merge(hash)
      if obj.save
        yell_psv(klasss + " #{lookup_key} updated.", day, klasss)
        puts klasss + " #{lookup_key} updated."
        return obj
      else
        yell_psv(klasss + " #{lookup_key} failed to update.", day, klasss)
        puts klasss + " #{lookup_key} failed to update."
        return nil
      end
    else
      yell_psv(klasss + " #{lookup_key} skipped update.", day, klasss)
      puts klasss + " #{lookup_key} skipped update."
      return obj
    end
  end
end

Oh and for some Stupid Simple Logging of the import I created a yell_psv method in environment.rb:

def yell_psv(msg, date = Date.today, filename = "") 
  # stupid simple logging:
  f = File.open(File.expand_path(File.dirname(__FILE__) + "/../log/" + filename + date.strftime("%Y_%m_%d") + ".log"),"a") 
  f.puts msg 
  f.close
end

How 'bout them apples!

Where's Peter been?!?

I have been in front of my computer most of the time. I have been writing web apps almost non-stop for a while now.

The newest I cannot yet reveal, but I hope to be able to soon, when it launches.

I have also been contributing heavily to RVideo, and am working at my day job on some projects that will soon be open sourced which are based on RVideo. We've extracted them from some commercial apps we're doing.

Watch this space!