= acts_as_audited

acts_as_audited is an ActiveRecord extension that logs all changes to your models in an audits table.

== Installation

* Install the plugin into your rails app
  If you are using Rails 2.1:

    script/plugin install git://github.com/collectiveidea/acts_as_audited.git

  For versions prior to 2.1:

    git clone git://github.com/collectiveidea/acts_as_audited.git vendor/plugins/acts_as_audited

* Generate the migration
    script/generate audited_migration add_audits_table
    rake db:migrate

== Auditing in Rails

If you're using acts_as_audited within Rails, you can simply declare which models should be audited.  acts_as_audited can also automatically record the user that made the change if your controller has a <tt>current_user</tt> method.

  class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
    audit User, List, Item
  protected
    def current_user
      @user ||= User.find(session[:user])
    end
  end

== Customizing

To get auditing outside of Rails, or to customize which fields are audited within Rails, you can explicitly declare <tt>acts_as_audited</tt> on your models:

    class User < ActiveRecord::Base
      acts_as_audited :except => [:password, :mistress]
    end

See http://opensoul.org/2006/07/21/acts_as_audited for more information.

== Caveats

If your model declares +attr_accessible+ after +acts_as_audited+, you need to set +:protect+ to false. acts_as_audited uses +attr_protected+ internally to prevent malicious users from unassociating your audits, and Rails does not allow both +attr_protected+ and +attr_accessible+. It will default to false if +attr_accessible+ is called before +acts_as_audited+, but needs to be explicitly set if it is called after.

  class User < ActiveRecord::Base
    acts_as_audited :protect => false
    attr_accessible :name
  end

=== ActiveScaffold

Many users have also reported problems with acts_as_audited and ActiveScaffold, which appears to be caused by a limitation in ActiveScaffold not supporting polymorphic associations. To get it to work with ActiveScaffold:

  class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
    audit MyModel, :only => [:create, :update, :destroy]
  end

== Compatability

acts_as_audited works with Rails 2.0 or later.