Idempotent seed helper for rails -> THIS IS NOW A GEM https://github.com/panter/seed_box

README.md

Idempotent seed helper for rails

• The first model argument is the model class
• The second argument find_or_create_by is a hash of attributes that are used for finding a record. If the record doesn't exist, it will be created. This hash is like the unique identifier of a seed record.
• The third argument update_with is a hash of attributes that will be always set on the record, whether the record already exists or has to be created. This is useful when the seeds are extended and you want to update existing records with new attributes.

Example usage

seed User, { email: 'admin@example.ch' }, {
  password: 'asdfasdf',
  roles: [:admin],
  first_name: 'John',
  last_name: 'Doe'
}

db.rake

# put this file in lib/tasks/db.rake

namespace :db do
  # Define a helper to create or update seed records
  task seed: :seed_helper

  task :seed_helper do
    def seed(model, find_or_create_by, update_with = {})
      record = model.where(find_or_create_by).first_or_initialize

      if record.update_attributes(update_with)
        record
      else
        raise "Couldn't save #{record.class} (#{record.errors.full_messages.join(', ')})"
      end
    end
  end
end

seeds.rb

# put this file in db/seeds.rb

seed User, { email: 'admin@example.ch' }, {
  password: 'asdfasdf',
  roles: [:admin],
  first_name: 'John',
  last_name: 'Doe'
}

This is great! thanks

This is now a gem https://github.com/panter/seed_box