Using Cloud Datastore with Ruby

This page of the Bookshelf tutorial shows how the sample app stores its persistent data in Cloud Datastore. The sample code provides examples of how to create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) data stored in Cloud Datastore.

This page is part of a multipage tutorial. To start from the beginning and read the setup instructions, go to Ruby Bookshelf app.

Installing dependencies and configuring settings

  1. Go to the getting-started-ruby/2-cloud-datastore directory, and enter the following command:

    bundle install
  2. Copy the database.example.yml file.

    cp config/database.example.yml config/database.yml
  3. To configure the app to use your Cloud Datastore, edit the config/database.yml file. Replace [YOUR_PROJECT_ID] with your project ID.

    For example, suppose your project ID is my-project. Then the development and production sections of your database.yml file would look similar to this:

      dataset_id: my-project
      dataset_id: my-project

Cloud Datastore is a fully managed service that is automatically initialized and connected to your App Engine app. No further configuration is required.

Running the app on your local machine

  1. Start a local web server.

    bundle exec rails server
  2. In your web browser, enter the following address:



To exit the local web server, press Control+C .

Deploying the app to the App Engine flexible environment

  1. Compile the JavaScript assets for production.

    RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake assets:precompile
  2. Deploy the sample app.

    gcloud app deploy
  3. In your web browser, enter the following address.




To delete an app version:


    Go to the Versions page

  3. Click Delete to delete the app version.


Application structure

The following diagram shows the app's components and how they connect to each other.

Bookshelf app deployment process and structure

Understanding the code

This section walks you through the sample code and explains how it works.

Interact with Cloud Datastore

The Bookshelf sample app uses the google-cloud RubyGem, which is a client library for accessing Google Cloud Platform (GCP) services.

To interact with Cloud Datastore, the app configures a Dataset object based on the project ID that you entered in the config/database.yml file.

The following sections explain how the app uses the Dataset to query Cloud Datastore for lists of books.

require "google/cloud/datastore"

class Book

  attr_accessor :id, :title, :author, :published_on, :description

  # Return a Google::Cloud::Datastore::Dataset for the configured dataset.
  # The dataset is used to create, read, update, and delete entity objects.
  def self.dataset
    @dataset ||=
      project_id: Rails.application.config.

List books

When you visit the app's home page, you are routed to the index action of the BooksController class. This is configured in config/routes.rb.

Rails.application.routes.draw do

  # Route root of application to BooksController#index action
  root "books#index"

  # Restful routes for BooksController
  resources :books


The BookController#index action retrieves a list of books from Cloud Datastore. The Book.query method returns an array of Book objects and a query cursor that you can use to retrieve additional entities. Read more about query cursors.

class BooksController < ApplicationController

  PER_PAGE = 10

  def index
    @books, @cursor = Book.query limit: PER_PAGE, cursor: params[:cursor]

The Book.query method queries Cloud Datastore for entities of kind Book and returns them as instances of the Book class:

# Query Book entities from Cloud Datastore.
# returns an array of Book query results and a cursor
# that can be used to query for additional results.
def self.query options = {}
  query =
  query.kind "Book"
  query.limit options[:limit]   if options[:limit]
  query.cursor options[:cursor] if options[:cursor]

  results = query
  books   = {|entity| Book.from_entity entity }

  if options[:limit] && results.size == options[:limit]
    next_cursor = results.cursor

  return books, next_cursor

The Book.query method creates a Google::Cloud::Datastore::Query object and configures it to request entities of kind Book, with a limit set on the number of results it can return. If a query cursor is provided, the query returns results starting at the cursor.

After Book.query fetches a list of books, the embedded Ruby code in books/index.html.erb renders the list.

<% @books.each do |book| %>
  <div class="media book">
    <%= link_to book_path(book) do %>
      <div class="media-body">
        <h4><%= book.title %></h4>
        <p><%= %></p>
    <% end %>
<% end %>

<% if @cursor %>
    <ul class="pager">
      <li><%= link_to "More", books_path(cursor: @cursor) %></li>
<% end %>

To query and retrieve results from Cloud Datastore, Book.query calls Dataset#run, which executes the query and returns a collection of Entity objects.

Entity objects returned from Cloud Datastore are represented in the following form:

  key: {
    dataset_id: "your-project-id",
    kind: "Book",
    id: "5726256557457408"
  properties: {
    title: "A Tale of Two Cities",
    author: "Charles Dickens"

The Book class includes methods for translating between Entity objects and Book objects. For example, Book.from_entity takes an Entity object and returns an instance of Book.

def self.from_entity entity
  book = = do |name, value|
    book.send "#{name}=", value if book.respond_to? "#{name}="

Display book details

When you click an individual book on the web page, the BookController#show action calls Book.find to retrieve the book from Cloud Datastore.

def show
  @book = Book.find params[:id]

The Book.find method fetches the book from Cloud Datastore by its autogenerated integer id key.

# Lookup Book by ID.  Returns Book or nil.
def self.find id
  query    = "Book", id.to_i
  entities = dataset.lookup query

  from_entity entities.first if entities.any?

After Book.find retrieves the books, the embedded Ruby code in books/show.html.erb renders the list.

<div class="media">
  <div class="media-body">
    <h4><%= @book.title %> | &nbsp; <small><%= @book.published_on %></small></h4>
    <h5>By <%= || "unknown" %></h5>
    <p><%= @book.description %></p>

Create books

When you click Add book on the web page, the BooksController#new action creates a new Book. The embedded Ruby code in new.html.erb points to _form.html.erb, which displays the form for adding a new book.

<%= form_for @book do |f| %>
  <div class="form-group">
    <%= f.label :title %>
    <%= f.text_field :title %>
  <div class="form-group">
    <%= f.label :author %>
    <%= f.text_field :author %>
  <div class="form-group">
    <%= f.label :published_on, "Date Published" %>
    <%= f.date_field :published_on %>
  <div class="form-group">
    <%= f.label :description %>
    <%= f.text_area :description %>
  <button class="btn btn-success" type="submit">Save</button>
<% end %>

When you submit the form, the BooksController#create action saves the book in Cloud Datastore. If the new book is saved successfully, the book's page is displayed. Otherwise, the form is displayed again along with error messages. The book_params method uses strong parameters to specify which form fields are allowed. In this case, only the book's title, author, published_on, and description are allowed:

def create
  @book = book_params

    flash[:success] = "Added Book"
    redirect_to book_path(@book)
    render :new


def book_params
  params.require(:book).permit(:title, :author, :published_on, :description)

The title field is required for a book to be considered valid. Only valid books are saved in Cloud Datastore.

# Add Active Model validation support to Book class.
include ActiveModel::Validations

validates :title, presence: true

The Book.create method calls, which translates the Book object to an Entity object, and then uses the Datastore dataset to save the book in Cloud Datastore.

# Save the book to Datastore.
# @return true if valid and saved successfully, otherwise false.
def save
  if valid?
    entity = to_entity entity =

Edit books

When you click Edit book on the web page, the BooksController#update action retrieves the book from Cloud Datastore. The embedded Ruby code in edit.html.erb points to _form.html.erb, which displays the form for editing the book.

def update
  @book = Book.find params[:id]

  if @book.update book_params
    flash[:success] = "Updated Book"
    redirect_to book_path(@book)
    render :edit

The BooksController#update action calls the update method of the Book instance.

# Set attribute values from provided Hash and save to Datastore.
def update attributes
  attributes.each do |name, value|
    send "#{name}=", value if respond_to? "#{name}="

If the book details are updated successfully, the user is directed to the book's page. Otherwise, the form is displayed again with error messages displayed.

Delete books

When you click Delete Book on the web page, the BooksController#destroy action deletes the book from Cloud Datastore and displays the list of books.

def destroy
  @book = Book.find params[:id]
  redirect_to books_path

The BooksController#destroy action calls the destroy method of the Book instance.

def destroy
  Book.dataset.delete "Book", id
Was this page helpful? Let us know how we did:

Send feedback about...