What is an active record?

Question

What exactly is an active record? I hear this term used in Ruby post and nhibernate.

Answer 1

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_record_pattern
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ruby_on_Rails/ActiveRecord/Associations

Answer 2

It s a Design Pattern.

http://martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/activeRecord.html

Answer 3

Active record is a design pattern where you map each table to a class. This means that each object created from this class represents a row in the table.

http://martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/activeRecord.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_record_pattern

Answer 4

ActiveRecord is a design pattern in which you treat one row of a database table like an object. In Rails, each of the column names can be accessed via the object's methods.

Think of it as an interface for manipulating data in the database.

Answer 5

Active record was initially a design pattern which involved wrapping database table operations in a class.

In a Rails context, however, it is also the proper name of a particular software component which implements the design pattern in Ruby for object-relational mapping, and the name of its associated module.