I want to create a bit, that will contain security permissions for a given user.
In c#, I would do this by creating an enumeration, and then I would do some bit banging on the binary value, by anding '&&' to see if it results in a TRUE value.
How can I do this best in Ruby?
If the underlying value is important then you can create a module that you use like an enum
module Groups
ADMIN = 1
BOSS = 2
CLERK = 4
MEAT = 8
BREAD = 16
CHEESE = 32
end
To set permissions just bitwise or
them together
permissions = Groups::BOSS | Groups::MEAT | Groups::CHEESE
and to test you do a bitwise and
>> permissions & Groups::CHEESE > 0
=> true
>> permissions & Groups::BREAD > 0
=> false
I also like how you can make actual bitmasks more readable with _
like this
permissions = 0b0010_1010
Bitwse operations are trivial in Ruby.
> 1 | 2 # Create a bitmask from permission 2^0 + 2^1
=> 3
> 3 & 1 == 1 # See if the bitmask contains the 2^0 permission
=> true
> 3 & 4 == 4 # See if the bitmask contains the 2^2 permission
=> false
Ryan Bates talks about using bitwise operations for embedding associations in this podcast. You can read text version here.