ActiveRecord Integration

Direct Serialization

Latinum can be easily used in a ActiveRecord model simply by declaring a serialized data-type for a string or text column, e.g.

class Transaction < ActiveRecord::Base
	serialize :total, coder: Latinum::Resource
end

It can be used like so:

transaction = Transaction.new(:total => "10 NZD")
transaction.total * 2
# => "20.0 NZD"

To format the output, use a Latinum::Bank, e.g. assuming the bank is set up correctly:

bank.format(transaction.total)
# => "$20.00 NZD"

bank.format(transaction.total, name: nil)
# => "$20.00"

bank.format(transaction.total, symbol: nil)
# => "20.00 NZD"

Bank Serialization

If you want to accept ambiguous input, e.g. $5 and have the bank determine the currency, you can use the Latinum::Bank as the serializer:

require 'latinum/bank'
require 'latinum/currencies/global'

class Transaction < ActiveRecord::Base
	BANK = Latinum::Bank.new(Latinum::Currency::Global)

	serialize :total, coder: BANK
end

This will store the same format as the Latinum::Resource serializer, but will allow you to use the bank to determine the currency. When several symbols share the same prefix (e.g. $), the bank will choose the currency with the highest priority.

Conversion To and From Integers

For storage in traditional databases, you may prefer to use integers. Based on the precision of the currency, you can store integer representations:

resource = Latinum::Resource.new("1.12345678", "BTC")

112345678 == bank.to_integral(resource)
# => true

resource == bank.from_integral(112345678, "BTC")
# => true

As BitCoin has 8 decimal places, it requires an integer representation with at least 10^8.