Efficient way to pull data from second database?

Question

We have a primary database where all of our app resides.

But there's a second database (updated from an external source), that I'd like to be able to connect to so I can pull data from it. I don't need to write anything...just read.

It also only has one table that I'm pulling from.

I really just need to do something like:

OtherDatabase.articles.where(id > 1000)

And that's it.

So how can I do this in Rails (running 3.2.13)?

Answer 1

For simple scenarios, Rails can support this without any extra gems; simply define the database in database.yml:

other_db:
  adapter: mysql2
  encoding: utf8
  database: other_db
  username: user
  password: passwd
  host: 1.2.3.4
  port: 3306

Then in the model you want to use the other database add:

class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
  establish_connection(:other_db)
  self.table_name = 'other_db.articles'
end

And then you can perform your query:

Article.where("id > 1000")

=)