Simplest possible use of Enumerize. Trying to track down my bug in Gist 2497174.

enumerize_testing.rb

gem 'rails', '3.2.3' # change as required
require 'active_record'
require 'enumerize'
require 'awesome_print'

# Print out what version we're running
puts "Active Record #{ActiveRecord::VERSION::STRING}"

# Connect to an in-memory sqlite3 database (more on this in a moment)
ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(
  :adapter  => 'sqlite3',
  :database => ':memory:'
)

ActiveRecord::Schema.define do
  create_table :users, :force => true do |t|
    t.string :name
  end

  create_table :articles, :force => true do |t|
    t.integer :author_id
    t.string  :name
    t.string  :status
  end
end

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :name
  has_many :articles
end

class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
  include Enumerize

  # attr_accessor :status

  # validates_presence_of :name, :status
  belongs_to :author, :class_name => 'User'

  # ##### KEY LINE BELOW ##### #
  enumerize :status, :in => [:new, :draft, :private, :published] #, :default => :new
  # ##### KEY LINE ABOVE ##### #
end

author = User.create! :name => 'The Author'
puts "Author valid? " + author.valid?.to_s

article = Article.new :name => 'An Article', :status => :new
article.author = author
article.status = :published
puts "Article valid? " + article.valid?.to_s
awesome_print article
awesome_print article.status.published?