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I'm currently constructing a Rails site to edit a collection of files used for configuration of various services. The files are simple plain text files. The point of the site is to provide an easy interface for editing the files as well as validate changes for the less technically incline individuals who will be editing them.

I've looked around but I can't seem to find anything on using text files instead of a database. What I do find suggests that what I'm trying to do may not be correct for rails at all. The closest thing have is this question, but the answers are less than helpful.

Is there a correct way to create an MVC for text files and not use a database at all?

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Ryan Haining
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Yes. Rails provides MVC with activerecord being default for models. you can keep rails views and controllers (VC part) and write your own models (M part). Imagine using mongoid ORM instead of active record. For that reason rails provides activemodel to make it easy for people to write their own models that are backed by different storage mechanism. look at https://github.com/rails/rails/tree/master/activemodel to get started on writing your own ORM that will use text files as backend instead of SQL database. Also include http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveModel/Lint/Tests.html in your model test files to verify that your models conform activemodel api. After that, you can use rails form helpers in views and routes with your models without problem.

Iuri G.
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