adventures-on-rails.md

Step by Step

Getting Kicked Off

1. rails new app-name --skip-test-unit
2. Better get the Gemfile looking spiffy/installed
3. Don't forget to get all set up for PostgreSQL
4. Use RSpec: rails generate rspec:install
5. Sexify README
6. Deploy!

Get Stylin'

1. Add the un-minimized Bootstrap assets to vendor/assets
2. require bootstrap in application.css.scss and application.js
3. rails generate controller StaticPages home help --no-test-framework
4. Make the root route and a dummy view to test Bootstrap
5. Create a general application layout with HTML5 shim

Spork Me

1. Install spark gem with Gemfile
2. Add environment loading to spec/spec_helper.rb

require 'rubygems'
require 'spork'

Spork.prefork do
  # Loading more in this block will cause your tests to run faster. However, 
  # if you change any configuration or code from libraries loaded here, you'll
  # need to restart spork for it take effect.
  # This file is copied to spec/ when you run 'rails generate rspec:install'
  ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= 'test'
  require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__)
  require 'rspec/rails'
  require 'rspec/autorun'

  # Requires supporting ruby files with custom matchers and macros, etc,
  # in spec/support/ and its subdirectories.
  Dir[Rails.root.join("spec/support/**/*.rb")].each {|f| require f}

  RSpec.configure do |config|
    # == Mock Framework
    #
    # If you prefer to use mocha, flexmock or RR, uncomment the appropriate line:
    #
    # config.mock_with :mocha
    # config.mock_with :flexmock
    # config.mock_with :rr
    config.mock_with :rspec

    # Remove this line if you're not using ActiveRecord or ActiveRecord fixtures
    config.fixture_path = "#{::Rails.root}/spec/fixtures"

    # If you're not using ActiveRecord, or you'd prefer not to run each of your
    # examples within a transaction, remove the following line or assign false
    # instead of true.
    config.use_transactional_fixtures = true

    # If true, the base class of anonymous controllers will be inferred
    # automatically. This will be the default behavior in future versions of
    # rspec-rails.
    config.infer_base_class_for_anonymous_controllers = false
  end
end

Spork.each_run do
  # This code will be run each time you run your specs.

end

3. Configure .rspec to use spark

--colour
--drb

4. Run spork in the background and enjoy faster RSpec!

How Tos

Adding New Models

1. Call (for example) rails generate model User name:string email:string replaced with your data
   • Timestamp data is automatically added
2. rake db:migrate
3. Set accessible attributes with attr_accessible :name, :email
4. Consider annotating with bundle exec annotate

Updating Models

1. rails generate migration add_index_to_users_email
2. Find the migration in db/migrate
3. Edit the migration
4. Run rake db:migrate

Adding Fields to Models

rails generate migration add_password_digest_to_users password_digest:string

• Parses _to_users
• Creates new column called password_digest of type string

Adding New Pages

1. Controller method
2. Route
3. View
4. Optionally: Helpers, style sheets

Named Routes

SampleApp::Application.routes.draw do
  match '/about',   to: 'static_pages#about'
end

Automatically creates the named routes:

about_path => '/about'
about_url  => 'http://localhost:3000/about'

Database

1. Create a new model or migration
2. Migrate the database with rake db:migrate

You can fix mistakes with rake db:rollback or rake db:migrate VERSION=0 (replace 0).

Data Validation

Can validate:

• presence
• length
• format
• uniqueness

For uniqueness, you must enforce at the database level as well due to double-submission and app-database concurrency issues. This is done with a unique database index.

Authentication

1. Add string password_digest field to user's database model (and migrate)
2. Add :password and :password_confirmation to user's attr_accessible
3. Add validations to password
4. Validate presence of password_confirmation manually
5. Call has_secure_password in user's model, which performs magic relating password, password_confirmation, and password_digest, and creates an authenticate method

Testing

1. Create a new test file with rails generate integration_test static_pages
2. Run tests using the rspec command with optional files/folders

Describe

describe "Home page" do

  it "should have the content 'Sample App'" do
    visit '/static_pages/home'
    page.should have_content('Sample App')
  end
end

Helper Methods

Use vigorously!

Layouts

In a layout:

• <%= yield(:symbol) returns the result of <% provide(:symbol, 'Symbol info') %>
• <%= yield %> returns the rest of the view's body

Reference

RESTful Resources

Via resources :users

HTTP Request	URI	Action	Named Route	Purpose
GET	/users	index	users_path	page to list all users
GET	/users/1	show	user_path(user)	page to show user
GET	/users/new	new	new_user_path	page to make a new user (signup)
POST	/users	create	users_path	create a new user
GET	/users/1/edit	edit	edit_user_path(user)	page to edit user with id 1
PUT	/users/1	update	user_path(user)	update user
DELETE	/users/1	destroy	user_path(user)	delete user

Via resource :library

…

Rails Console Commands

For data models

• User.new(name: "Michael Hartl", email: "mhartl@example.com")
• User.create(name: "A Nother", email: "another@example.org") (Automatically saves)
• User.find(1)
• User.find_by_email("mhartl@example.com")
• User.first
• User.all
• foo.valid?
• foo.reload
• foo.save
• foo.destroy

Rails Tools

• Ruby
• RVM
• RubyGems
• Bundler
• Rails
• Git