The Key that identifies the entity.

Retrieve properties in a hash-like structure. Properties can be accessed or set by string or symbol.

Returns¶ ↑

Gcloud::Datastore::Properties

Example¶ ↑

entity.properties[:name] = "User McUser"
entity.properties["name"] #=> "User McUser"

entity.properties.each do |name, value|
  puts "property #{name} has a value of #{value}"
end

A property's existance can be determined by calling exist?

entity.properties.exist? :name #=> true
entity.properties.exist? "name" #=> true
entity.properties.exist? :expiration #=> false

A property can be removed from the entity.

entity.properties.delete :name
entity.save

The properties can be converted to a hash:

prop_hash = entity.properties.to_h

Create a new Entity object.

Retrieve a property value by providing the name.

Parameters¶ ↑

prop_name

The name of the property. (String or Symbol)

Returns¶ ↑

Object if the property exists, nil if the property doesn't exist

Example¶ ↑

Properties can be retrieved with a string name:

require "gcloud"

gcloud = Gcloud.new
dataset = gcloud.datastore
user = dataset.find "User", "heidi"
user["name"] #=> "Heidi Henderson"

Or with a symbol name:

require "gcloud"

gcloud = Gcloud.new
dataset = gcloud.datastore
user = dataset.find "User", "heidi"
user[:name] #=> "Heidi Henderson"

Set a property value by name.

Parameters¶ ↑

prop_name

The name of the property. (String or Symbol)

prop_value

The value of the property. (Object)

Example¶ ↑

Properties can be set with a string name:

require "gcloud"

gcloud = Gcloud.new
dataset = gcloud.datastore
user = dataset.find "User", "heidi"
user["name"] = "Heidi H. Henderson"

Or with a symbol name:

require "gcloud"

gcloud = Gcloud.new
dataset = gcloud.datastore
user = dataset.find "User", "heidi"
user[:name] = "Heidi H. Henderson"

Flag a property to be excluded from the Datastore indexes. Setting true will exclude the property from the indexes. Setting false will include the property on any applicable indexes. The default value for the flag is false.

entity["age"] = 21
entity.exclude_from_indexes! "age", true

Properties that are arrays can be given multiple exclude flags.

entity["tags"] = ["ruby", "code"]
entity.exclude_from_indexes! "tags", [true, false]

Or, array properties can be given a single flag that will be applied to each item in the array.

entity["tags"] = ["ruby", "code"]
entity.exclude_from_indexes! "tags", true

Flags can also be set with a block for either single and array values.

entity["age"] = 21
entity.exclude_from_indexes! "age" do |age|
  age > 18
end

Indicates if a property is flagged to be excluded from the Datastore indexes. The default value is false.

Single property values will return a single flag setting.

entity["age"] = 21
entity.exclude_from_indexes? "age" #=> false

Array property values will return an array of flag settings.

entity["tags"] = ["ruby", "code"]
entity.exclude_from_indexes? "tags" #=> [false, false]

Sets the Key that identifies the entity.

Example¶ ↑

The Key can be set before the entity is saved.

require "gcloud"

gcloud = Gcloud.new
dataset = gcloud.datastore
entity = Gcloud::Datastore::Entity.new
entity.key = Gcloud::Datastore::Key.new "User"
dataset.save entity

Once the entity is saved, the key is frozen and immutable. Trying to set a key when immutable will raise a RuntimeError.

require "gcloud"

gcloud = Gcloud.new
dataset = gcloud.datastore
entity = dataset.find "User", "heidi"
entity.persisted? #=> true
entity.key = Gcloud::Datastore::Key.new "User" #=> RuntimeError
entity.key.frozen? #=> true
entity.key.id = 9876543221 #=> RuntimeError

Indicates if the record is persisted. Default is false.

Example¶ ↑

require "gcloud"

gcloud = Gcloud.new
dataset = gcloud.datastore

new_entity = Gcloud::Datastore::Entity.new
new_entity.persisted? #=> false

found_entity = dataset.find "User", "heidi"
found_entity.persisted? #=> true