A demo module to show how DSLs work in Ruby applications. The library provides a script that converts a credit card number when prompted using base conversion to mimick how encryption works within a real application. The Encryptable module is modified from the version in a talk given by Ufuk Kayserilioglu at RubyKaigi Takeout 2021.
Assumes rbenv is installed.
Run bin/encryptable to receive a prompt to enter a fake credit card number:
./bin/encryptable
Enter a (fake) credit card number!
411111111111111
Your encrypted† credit card number is:
34313131313131313131313131313131
†Not really encrypted!Behind the scenes, the "attr_encryptable" DSL method relies on an accessor called "number_encrypted." The accessor can be implemented at runtime on a model using Rails' Database schema file in a real application.
To run the tests, enter the following command
bundle exec rake test
In general, encrypted data is more understandable when it is automatically decrypted to cleartext for a user. In a codebase, an application developer should be able to avoid encryption implementation details in the same way that a web browser user is shielded from manually decrypting HTTPS webpages. Just like the OSI model, a codebase can also have a presentation layer that is accessible when necessary but invisible in the common case.