HyperactiveResource
Many have said that ActiveResource is not really “complete”. On the surface, this means that some features that are documented aren’t implemented. Digging a little deeper, we find that some features that should exist don’t.
Arguably, a “complete” ActiveResource would behave like ActiveRecord or, as the rdoc for ActiveResource states “very similarly to Active Record”.
Hyperactive Resource is MDL’s extension to ActiveResource::Base written to support our Patient Registry and goes a long way towards the goal of an ActiveResource that behaves like ActiveRecord.
Features

• Client side validations
• Hooks for before_validate, before_save
• Dynamic finders: find_by_X
• save!
• Awareness of associations between resources: belongs_to, has_many, has_one & columns
  • Patient.new.name returns nil instead of MethodMissing
  • Patient.new.races returns [] instead of MethodMissing
  • pat = Patient.new; pat.gender_id = 1; pat.gender #Will return find the gender obj
• Resources can be associated with records
• Records can be associated with resources
• ActiveRecord-like attributes= (updates rather than replaces)
• ActiveRecord-like #load that doesn’t #dup attributes (stores direct reference)
• Supports saving resources that :include other resources via:
  • Nested resource saving (creating a patient will create their associated addresses)
  • Mapping associations ([:gender].id will serialize as :gender_id)
    Example
    1. Install the plugin via:
    cd path/to/rails_root/vendor/plugins
    git clone git://github.com/lukegalea/hyperactiveresource.git
    2. Create a HyperactiveResource where you would normally use ActiveResource and define the meta-data/associations that
    drive the dynamic magic:
    class Address < HyperactiveResource
    self.columns = [ :street_address, :city, :zipcode, :home_phone_number ]
    self.belong_tos = [ :country, :state ]
    self.has_manys = [ :people ]
    end
    3. Enjoy the magic
    address = Address.new
    address.country # nil instead of method_missing
    address.country_id = 5
    address.country #Returns Country.find(5)
    etc..
    Copyright© 2008 Medical Decision Logic, released under the MIT license