keep a version of an object before it's updated

Question

I would like to keep a version of an object before it's updated.

For example:

This is the article on create:

#<Article:0x007fc32af4c910
 id:1,
 title: "Guitar",
 price: 300,
 buying_price: 50,
 created_at: Sun, 17 Feb 2019 14:39:21 UTC +00:00,
 updated_at: Sun, 17 Feb 2019 14:39:21 UTC +00:00,
 >

This is an update of the article:

#<Article:0x007fc32af4c910
 id:1,
 title: "Guitar",
 price: 300,
 buying_price: 35,
 created_at: Sun, 17 Feb 2019 14:39:21 UTC +00:00,
 updated_at: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 14:39:21 UTC +00:00,
 >

This the another update of the article:

#<Article:0x007fc32af4c910
 id:1,
 title: "Guitar",
 price: 380,
 buying_price: 45
 created_at: Sun,17 Feb 2019 14:39:21 UTC +00:00,
 updated_at: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 14:39:21 UTC +00:00,
 >

See the the prices have changed, but I want to be able to report them all in an accounting table:

date | buying_price | price

17 feb |50 |300|
18 feb |35 |300|
20 feb |45 |380|

sorry I don't know how to create a table on markdown here

razvans · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-20T20:36:52.550

2

Accounting table is a DB table

You can use previous_changes do detect what changed and in a callback to update the accounting table.

class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
after_save :log_to_accounting_table
```
 private 

 def log_to_accounting_table
   p previous_changes
   Accounting.create(....)
 end
```
end

Not related to your issue: I'm using audited to track changes.
Accounting table is an Excel (what OP really wanted)

You'll need a table to store all those changes, "old versions" as you call them. audited will help you. Then all you need to do is to export data from the audits table to a csv. Check this out to learn how to export to excel.

edited Feb 20 '19 at 20:36

answered Feb 20 '19 at 15:29

razvans

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Thanks :) I am not sure to understand sorry... When I was talking about accounting table I meant a kind of excel table (not a DB table) to list my articles and their different states. I dont' understand how I will display my "old" versions and their date ( could be several) – johan Feb 20 '19 at 16:13
many thanks, I will look at this and come back to accept the answer :) – johan Feb 20 '19 at 22:29

keep a version of an object before it's updated

1 Answers1