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ruby-on-railsglobal-variablesapplication-variables

Rails - how to make global object

I want to parse a XML document once - at Rails application startup. It is parsed to an object, and I want this object to be accessible from anywhere, from any user session. How to implement this application-level object the right way?

Solution

  • If you just need information from the xml and you can have it as simple hashes/arrays/strings, and no specific object is necessary, you could use Settingslogic for this - normally it takes yaml file and then is accessible throughout the whole application. For example, you define a class:

    # app/models/settings.rb
class Settings < Settingslogic
  source "#{Rails.root}/config/application.yml"
  namespace Rails.env
end

# config/application.yml
defaults: &defaults
  global: 'Hello'

development:
  <<: *defaults
  more:
    data: [1, 2, 3]

    And then you can use it anywhere like this:

    > Settings.global
=> "Hello"
> Settings.more.data
=> [1, 2, 3]