Rails 3 datatypes?

Question

Where can I find a list of data types that can be used in rails 3? (such as text, string, integer, float, date, etc.?) I keep randomly learning about new ones, but I'd love to have a list I could easily refer to.

Answer 1

Do you mean for defining active record migrations? or do you mean Ruby data types?

Here's a link that may help for creating migrations:

Orthogonal Thought - MySQL and Ruby on Rails datatypes

Answer 2

It might be helpful to know generally what these data types are used for:

• binary - is for storing data such as images, audio, or movies.
• boolean - is for storing true or false values.
• date - store only the date
• datetime - store the date and time into a column.
• decimal - is for decimals.
• float - is for decimals. (What's the difference between decimal and float?)
• integer - is for whole numbers.
• primary_key - unique key that can uniquely identify each row in a table
• string - is for small data types such as a title. (Should you choose string or text?)
• text - is for longer pieces of textual data, such as a paragraph of information.
• time - is for time only
• timestamp - for storing date and time into a column.

I hope that helps someone! Also, here's the official list: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/migrations.html#supported-types

Answer 3

It is important to know not only the types but the mapping of these types to the database types, too:

For, example, note that in MS SQL Server we are using:

1. the old "datetime" instead "datetime2"
2. decimal with its default precision
3. text and varchar instead nvarchar
4. int (not possible to use tiny int/small int/big int)
5. image instead BLOB

Answer 4

Here are all the Rails3 (ActiveRecord migration) datatypes:

:binary
:boolean
:date
:datetime
:decimal
:float
:integer
:primary_key
:references
:string
:text
:time
:timestamp

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