Using binary ids / UUIDs for database primary keys in Rails.
It's generally a good idea to use binary ids / UUIds for the primary keys in your database.
Here's how to easily do it in Rails 7, using Postgres!
Configure your generators to use UUID for keys.
Create a file in config/initializers/generators.rb
Rails.application.config.generators do |g|
g.orm :active_record, primary_key_type: :uuid
end
Now when you generate models it'll automatically use uuids for the primary keys. This even works automatically for things like action_text.
Here's what the action_text generator will create for you:
# This migration comes from action_text (originally 20180528164100)
class CreateActionTextTables < ActiveRecord::Migration[6.0]
def change
# Use Active Record's configured type for primary and foreign keys
primary_key_type, foreign_key_type = primary_and_foreign_key_types
create_table :action_text_rich_texts, id: primary_key_type do |t|
t.string :name, null: false
t.text :body, size: :long
t.references :record, null: false, polymorphic: true, index: false, type: foreign_key_type
t.timestamps
t.index [ :record_type, :record_id, :name ], name: "index_action_text_rich_texts_uniqueness", unique: true
end
end
private
def primary_and_foreign_key_types
config = Rails.configuration.generators
setting = config.options[config.orm][:primary_key_type]
primary_key_type = setting || :primary_key
foreign_key_type = setting || :bigint
[primary_key_type, foreign_key_type]
end
end
Notice the id type! Pretty nifty.
Make sure your foreign keys use UUID!
When you start creating more tables, make sure the type is correct.
class CreateQuotes < ActiveRecord::Migration[7.1]
def change
create_table :quotes, id: :uuid do |t|
t.text :favorite_quote
t.uuid :user_id
t.timestamps
end
end
end
t.uuid
! Don't forget!
And it's that easy.