Globally accessible class that connects to the db during startup only

Question

I want to create a globally accessible class in my Rails project that will contain some active record result sets also.

@settings = Settings.first
@locales = Locales.all
$websiteSettings = WebsiteSettings.new(@settings, @locales)

Where should I be creating this class, is an initializer the best place?

I want to be able to access this class inside my controllers and views.

I understand that if the data changes in the database I will have to restart my rails application or update these global instances.

Answer 1

Put it in an initializer and set it as a global constant:

#config/initializers/settings.rb
module Settings
  @settings = Settings.first
  @locales  = Locales.all
  WEBSITE   = WebsiteSettings.new(@settings, @locales)
end

This would allow you to access Settings::WEBSITE throughout your app.

This is only applicable if you're calling the data through ActiveRecord.

---

If you weren't accessing the data through the db, you'd be better using one of the many settings gems, or adding the settings directly to the Rails.config class:

#config/application.rb
config.settings.title = "Test"  #-> Rails.configuration.settings.title

--

As an aside, I would strongly recommend you refactor your code; you're making 3 db calls to get a series of settings for your app.

Surely you could put all the settings inside the Settings model, scoped around different locales:

#config/initializers/settings.rb
module Settings
  SETTINGS = Settings.where(locale: :en)
end