RoR: making a version control function in side my application?

What would be the rails way of implementing version control in my record management application?

My system allows users to manage Records and i want to allow them to view historical versions of a开发者_开发技巧 Record. i know instead of updating a Record I will now create a new instance of the Record and related models every time a user "updates" a record(each Record has_many Categories and Advantages). how would i ensure that different versions of the Record are all linked together (i.e the new updated record created to be associated as the new version of record A, so when i click "show me a list of all versions of record A").

this is all theoretical thinking as i am yet to start coding, if i missed anything which i should also consider please let me know.

Thank You

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create a new instance of the record every-time a user updates it, have a secondary ID as you mentioned to group all different versions of the same record together and then run a check in the controller (using some sort of hidden value) to see if you want to save over the record or create a new one.

You can then retrive the latest version of each record by finding the most recently updated/created record with a unique secondary_id.

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A good starting point may be the vestal versions gem, that keeps an history of modified records

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Here are 2 of my insights:

1st simple one :

You save a record with a higher id , when you read it you take the higher id. If you want to know the past do not filter on ids.

2nd (parts from SAP) :

Your record has 2 supplemental fields , that is startTime, stopTime. Thoses are the time the record start entering in action and stops being in action. Inserting a new record , you update the stopTime of the last one, put now as the startTime of the new one, and the end of the world for the stopTime of the new one