As Ruby on Rails developers, we tend to add too much code in the same ActiveRecord model. Very often, this is because we fail to identify new objects. This article presents a concrete tool that helps keep our ActiveRecord models sizes under control thanks to the serialize method.

Identifying value objects in Rails

Let's take a concrete example. Imagine that we are working on an invoicing system, each invoice being composed of multiple line items. Our Invoice model would look like this:

class Invoice < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :line_items, dependent: :destroy
end

In our example, a LineItem will have a quantity stored as an integer and a unit_price stored as a decimal. The LineItem model would look like this:

class LineItem < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :invoice

  validates :quantity, numericality: { only_integer: true, greater_than: 0 }
  validates :unit_price, numericality: { greater_than: 0 }

  def total_price
    (unit_price * quantity).round(2)
  end
end

Let's now imagine a new requirement: we have to handle VAT rates of 0%, 10%, and 20% on line items, 0% VAT rate being for tourist taxes. The most straightforward implementation would probably be to add all of the VAT rates in the LineItem model as it already exists. We would add a tax_code string field in our line_items table, and our LineItem model would start growing:

class LineItem < ApplicationRecord
  # previous associations and validations

  TAX_CODES = { vat_0: 0.0, vat_10: 0.1, vat_20: 0.2 }

  validates :tax_code, inclusion: { in: TAX_CODES.keys.map(&:to_s) }

  def tax_rate
    TAX_CODES[tax_code.to_sym]
  end

  def tourist_tax?
    tax_code.to_sym == :vat_0
  end

  # We now have to take the tax_rate into account
  def total_price
    (unit_price * quantity * (1 + tax_rate)).round(2)
  end
end

This is a very simple example of course but failing to identify value objects creates two issues:

• Our LineItem model is doing too much. Failing to identify new objects will make the model longer and longer, and it will harm readability sooner or later.
• Tax-related information is now entangled inside of our LineItem model. If we want to reuse tax codes elsewhere in our application, we are stuck.

Tax codes represent something important in our application and we should give them a proper place to live.

Extracting value objects in Rails

We are first going to give this object a new home and a new name. With a few minor changes, we have extracted all the methods in the TaxCode object:

# app/models/tax_code.rb

class TaxCode
  TAX_CODES = { vat_0: 0.0, vat_10: 0.1, vat_20: 0.2 }

  attr_reader :key

  def initialize(key)
    @key = key.to_sym
  end

  def tax_rate
    TAX_CODES[key]
  end

  def tourist_tax?
    key == :vat_0
  end
end

Our LineItem model is now much smaller and focused on its main responsibility as we removed all the tax code related code:

class LineItem < ApplicationRecord
  # previous associations and validations

  validates :tax_code, inclusion: { in: TaxCode::TAX_CODES.keys.map(&:to_s) }

  def total_price
    (unit_price * quantity * (1 + tax_rate)).round(2)
  end

  def tax_rate
    TaxCode.new(tax_code).tax_rate
  end
end

There is still one issue to solve: The LineItem#tax_code does not return a TaxCode object. Let's demonstrate this issue in the rails console:

line_item = LineItem.create(quantity: 1, unit_price: 100, tax_code: :vat_20)
line_item.tax_code
=> "vat_20"

We want to get a TaxCode object when calling the LineItem#tax_code method. Luckily, Rails provides a way to do precisely that, thanks to the serialize method. Let's instruct the LineItem model that its tax_code method should return a TaxCode object:

class LineItem < ApplicationController
  serialize :tax_code, TaxCode

  # all the previous code...
end

For the .serialize method to work, TaxCode should implement both the .load and .dump class methods. As mentioned in the documentation, .dump will be called to serialize an object and should return the serialized value to be stored in the database. On the other hand, .load will be called to reverse the process and deserialize from the database. In our case, that means converting a string into a TaxCode object.

Let's add those two class methods to the TaxCode class:

# app/models/tax_code.rb

class TaxCode
  def self.load(key)
    # We don't want to build TaxCodes with a nil key
    new(key) if key
  end

  def self.dump(tax_code)
    case tax_code
    when self then tax_code.key
    else tax_code
    end
  end

  # all the previous code...
end

Great! Now the LineItem#tax_code method should return a TaxCode object! Let's update the validations and the LineItem#total_price method accordingly:

class LineItem
  # all the previous code
  validates :tax_code, inclusion: { in: TaxCode.all }

  def total_price
    (unit_price * quantity * (1 + tax_code.tax_rate)).round(2)
  end
end

Let's add the .all method on TaxCode and the #== method to be able to compare two tax codes as it is necessary for the inclusion validation to be able to compare them:

# app/models/tax_code.rb

class TaxCode
  # all the previous code...

  def self.all
    TAX_CODES.keys.map { |key| new(key) }
  end

  # Tax codes are equal if they have the same key
  def ==(other)
    if other.is_a?(self.class)
      key == other.key
    end
  end
end

Let's restart our rails console and try again:

line_item = LineItem.create(quantity: 1, unit_price: 100, tax_code: :vat_20)
line_item.tax_code
=> <TaxCode:0x00007fd0c6316728 @key=:vat_20>

That was a lot of work! Let's look at the final implementation of the LineItem model:

class LineItem < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :invoice

  validates :quantity, numericality: { only_integer: true, greater_than: 0 }
  validates :unit_price, numericality: { greater_than: 0 }
  validates :tax_code, inclusion: { in: TaxCode.all }

  serialize :tax_code, TaxCode

  def total_price
    (unit_price * quantity * (1 + tax_code.tax_rate)).round(2)
  end
end

As we can see, our model is very small and only focused on line items related calculations. All taxes related code has been extracted to the TaxCode class.

We can notice the same beneficial effects in the TaxCode class. All tax-related code is isolated in a small class with a single responsibility:

# app/models/tax_code.rb

class TaxCode
  TAX_CODES = { vat_0: 0.0, vat_10: 0.1, vat_20: 0.2 }

  def self.load(key)
    new(key) if key
  end

  def self.dump(tax_code)
    case tax_code
    when self then tax_code.key
    else tax_code
    end
  end

  def self.all
    TAX_CODES.keys.map { |key| new(key) }
  end

  attr_reader :key

  def initialize(key)
    @key = key.to_sym
  end

  def tax_rate
    TAX_CODES[key]
  end

  def tourist_tax?
    key == :vat_0
  end

  def ==(other)
    if other.is_a?(self.class)
      key == other.key
    end
  end
end

Our TaxCode model is now completely extracted and can be reused anywhere inside our application!

Serialization in the wild

Admittedly, our value object example is a bit simple. Let's explore a real-world example. ActionText is a part of the Ruby on Rails framework and enables us to add rich text to our applications with just one line of code. To add rich text to an Article model for example, we would simply add the following line to our model:

class Article < ApplicationRecord
  has_rich_text :content
end

Under the hood, the .has_rich_text method defines a has_one association with an object of class ActionText::RichText. The ActionText::RichText object holds the rich text inside the database in a body field that gets serialized in an ActionText::Content object.

module ActionText
  class RichText < Record
    serialize :body, ActionText::Content

    # ...
  end
end

The ActionText::Content object does much more than our simple TaxCode example of course; it defines many more methods! The .load and .dump methods are defined in the ActionText::Serialization concern that is included in ActionText::Content.

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