Rails 5 Update

rails_5_update.md

Upgrading Rails Projects

These instructions will step you through the process of upgrading a project from Rails 4 to Rails 5.

Before doing any of the following, ensure that you have Rails 5.1.2 installed (rails -v). If not, run gem install rails -version=5.1.2.

Let's call the existing Rails 4 project OP (Old Project), and the new Rails 5 project NP (New Project). The steps are as follows.

Workflow

• The update-rails branch will be the primary branch for this update.
• Make a branch off of this branch.
  • To make things a bit easier to keep track of, please use the following naming convention. All sub-branch names should begin with the prefix of update-rails-. For instance, if I'm updating AJAX Twitter, I'd name my branch update-rails-ajax-twitter.
• Once you finish up your work, please make a pull request where update-rails is the base and your branch is the compare.
• Add Louis, Hope, and Luke as reviewers of the pull request. Once two out of the three of us has reviewed your request, it will be merged into update-rails.

Solution/Skeleton:

• Create a new Rails project with the same name as OP. Make sure it is created with Rails 5.
  • Don't forget to initialize with Postgres!
• Gemfile:
  • All uses of shoulda-matchers require a special branch to be specified in the gemfile:

   gem 'shoulda-matchers', git: 'https://github.com/thoughtbot/shoulda-matchers.git', branch: 'rails-5'
  

  • If your project uses authentication, comment BCrypt back in to the gemfile.
  • If your project uses authentication or relies on jQuery, add gem 'jquery-rails'. Otherwise, don't add it.
  • If you need to setup RSpec, do that from the beginning. Also install Factory Girl if that's needed.
• Generate an NP model for each OP model.
  • If you have RSpecs to deal with, and if all is properly set up, running rails g model and rails g controller should generate the relevant tests for you.
  • Your Gemfile's :development block will probably look like this:

     gem 'pry-rails'
     gem 'byebug'
     gem 'better_errors'
     gem 'binding_of_caller'

  • Your Gemfile's :development, :test block will probably look like this if you have to deal with specs:

     gem 'shoulda-matchers', git: 'https://github.com/thoughtbot/shoulda-matchers.git', branch: 'rails-5'
     gem 'rails-controller-testing'
     gem 'rspec-rails', '~> 3.5'
     gem 'factory-girl-rails'

• If you need to copy over any other migrations, be aware that Rails 4 migrations inherit from ActiveRecord::Migration, while Rails 5 migrations inherit from ActiveRecord::Migration[5.1].
• Copy the contents of the OP models to the NP models. Note: Rails 4 migrations inherit from ActiveRecord::Base, while Rails 5 migrations inherit from ApplicationRecord.
• Generate an NP controller for each OP controller.
• Copy the contents of the OP controllers to the NP controllers. Don't forget ApplicationController.
• Copy over all the views for OP to NP. You can just copy individual files over - no need to change any code.
• Copy over the contents, if any, of the seed file.
• Copy over the content of the OP tests to the NP tests. Note, in Rails 5, controller tests require the rails-controller-testing gem, so make sure to add it to the gem file if there are any controller tests. gem 'rails-controller-testing'
• Copy over the frontend folder if there is one.
• Copy over the package.json and webpack.config.js if they exist.

Testing

• Run the app, make sure it works
• Test very thoroughly. Log in and out, create stuff, run specs: whatever the app does, make sure it still works.
• Debugging tips:
  • Note that belongs_to now validates the existence of the parent in Rails 5.
  • Remember to add the rails-controller-testing gem if there are any controller tests.
  • Remember ActiveRecord::Migration becomes ActiveRecord::Migration[5.1].
  • Remember ActiveRecord::Base becomes ApplicationRecord.

README

• There shouldn't be much to change here.
• If you had to do anything differently and that thing is mentioned in the README, make sure to update that part.
• If any code snippets look different in Rails 5 than they did in Rails 4, make sure to update them.
• In Rails 5 we can use rails db:some_command rather than rake db:some_command. This is the new standard. rake shouldn't appear anywhere in the README once you are done.