How does Basecamp 'scope' distinct users in a monolithic database?

rubyonrails-talk
1

I'm hoping to find someone who realizes the implications of this design strategy. I am attempting to build an application that access a common monolithic database but each user has a 'scope' so they only see their data.. My strategy is to create an http request that looks like project.controller.action.keyvalue and pass this throughout the application. The "Project" term is used to describe a distinct data scope that one user or a group would maintain. I expect we'd make http calls like http:\ \project.controller.action.keyvalue and database calls like: link_to: #{table.row.columname}                                                :Project => project                                                :Controller=>controller                                                :Action=> action                                                :Id => id

The patriarch of all RonR programs written by DHH (Basecamp) must utilize a strategy similar to this as they are running the same generic program, but accessing distinct data from one monolithic database. When Basecamp passes an http: request it's got to hold inside this package the group database, user, controller, action and value. Does anyone know the basic architecture of how this is accomplished? I found one clue to this question today when looking at the the ActionPack API and in it, DHH wrote:

Routing makes pretty urls incredibly easy   map.connect 'clients/:client_name/:project_name/:controller/:action'

  Accessing /clients/37signals/basecamp/project/dash calls ProjectController#dash with   { "client_name" => "37signals", "project_name" => "basecamp" } in params[:params]

  From that URL, you can rewrite the redirect in a number of ways:

  redirect_to(:action => "edit") =>     /clients/37signals/basecamp/project/dash

  redirect_to(:client_name => "nextangle", :project_name => "rails") =>     /clients/nextangle/rails/project/dash

I am willing to pay for someone to teach me how this is done.

Thank you, David VirtualLifestyle@gmail.com

2

hi dave,

my apologies if i misunderstood your question, but if you're asking about the routing, you can set up a route like so:

    map.connect 'projects/:project_id/:controller/:action/:id'

and when you use link_to, you only have to specify :project_id on the link that takes them into the project; subsequently, omitted :project_id and :controller default to the current one. so once in the widget controller for project 42, you can make links like:

  link_to @widget.name , :action => "show", :id => @widget

which will create a link to: /projects/42/widget/show/23

of course on each request you need to validate that the user is a member of the project and that the data they are asking for belongs to the project.

hope that helps, krishna

3

Take a look at this plugin for clues: http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/account_location