Ruby On Rails A Cheatsheet

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Ruby On Rails Commands

update rails create a new application generate documentation view available tasks view code statistics start ruby server at http://localhost:3000 ruby script/generate controller Controllername ruby script/generate controller Controllername action1 action2 ruby script/generate scaffold Model Controller ruby script/generate model Modelname gem update rails rails application rake appdoc rake --tasks rake stats ruby script/server

URL Mapping
http://www.example.com/controller/action

Naming
Class names are mixed case without breaks: MyBigClass, ThingGenerator Tablenames, variable names and symbols are lowercase with an underscore between words silly_count, temporary_holder_of_stuff ERb tags <%= %> <% %> ending with -%> will surpress the newline that follows use method h() to escape html & characters (prevent sql attacks, etc)

Creating links
<%= link_to Click me, :action => action_name %>
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<%= link_to Click me, :action => action_name, :id => product %> <%= link_to Click me, {:action => action_name, :id => product}, :confirm => Are you sure? %>

Database
3 databases configured in config/database.yml application_development application_test application_production a model is automatically mapped to a database table whose name is the plural form of the models class Database Table products orders users people Model Product Order User Person

every table has the first row id its best to save a copy of your database schema in db/create.sql

Database Finds
find (:all, :conditions => date available <= now() :order => date_available desc )

Relationships
belongs_to :parent a Child class belongs_to a Parent class in the children class, parent_id row maps to parents.id class Order < ActiveRecord ::Base has_many :line_items end

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class LineItem <ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :order belongs_to :product end notice the class LineItem is all one word, yet the database table is line_items and the reference to it in Order is has_many :line_items

Validation
validates_presence_of :fieldname1,fieldname2 is the field there? validates_numericality_of :fieldname is it a valid number? validates_uniqueness_of :fieldname is there already this value in the database? validates_format_of :fieldname matches against regular expression

Templates
if you create a template file in the app/views/layouts directory with the same name as a controller, all views rendered by that controller will use that layout by default <%= stylesheet_link_tag mystylesheet,secondstyle, :media => all %> <%= @content_for_layout %> rails automatically sets the variable @content_for_layout to the page-specific content generated by the view invoked in the request

Sessions
Rails uses the cookie-based approach to session data. Users of Rails applications must have cookies enabled in their browsers. Any key/value pairs you store into this hash during the processing of a request will be available during subsequent request from the same browser. Rails stores session information in a file on the server. Be careful if you get so popular that you have to scale to multiple servers. The first request may be serviced by one server and the followup request could
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go to a secondary server. The users session data could get lost. Make sure that session data is stored somewhere external to the application where it can be shared between multiple processes if needed. Worry about that once your Rails app gets really popular. if you need to remove your ruby session cookie on unix, look in /tmp for a file starting with ruby_sess and delete it. Request parameter information is held in a params object

Permissions
sections of classes can be divided into public (default), protected, private access (in that order). anything below the keyword private becomes a private method. protected methods can be called in the same instance and by other instances of the same class and its subclasses. attr_reader attr_writer attr_accessor attr_accessible # create reader only # create writer only # create reader and writer

Misc
<%= sprintf(%0.2f, product.price) %> :id => product is shorthand for :id => product.id methods ending in ! are destructive methods (like wiping out values, etc destroy! or empty!) a built-in helper method number_to_currency will format strings for money

Models
add the line model :modelname to application.rb for database persisted models

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Hooks and Filters

before_create() after_create() before_destroy() restrict access to methods using filters before_filter :methodname, :except => :methodname2 methodname must be executed for all methods except for methodname2. for example, make sure a user has been logged in before attempting any other actions

Controllers
/app/controllers/application.rb is a controller for the entire application. use this for global methods. different layouts can be applied to a controller by specifying: layout layoutname use the methods request.get? and request.post? to determine request type

Helpers
/app/helpers a helper is code that is automatically included into your views. a method named store_helper.rb will have methods available to views invoked by the store controller. you can also define helper methods in /app/helpers/application_helper.rb for methods available in all views module ApplicationHelper def some_method (arg) puts arg end end

Views
instead of duplicating code, we can use Rails components to redisplay it in other areas: <%= render_component (:action => display_cart, :params =>{:context=> :checkout } ) %>

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the context causes it to set a parameter of context =>:checkout so we can control if the full layout is rendered (which we dont want in this case) we change the method to include: def display_cart . if params[:context] == :checkout render(:layout => false) end end param conditions can be used in the view as well: <% unless params[:context] == :checkout -%> <%= link_to Empty Cart, :action => empty_cart %> <% end -%>

Exception Handling
usually 3 actions when an exception is thrown log to an internal log file (logger.error) output a short message to the user redisplay the original page to continue error reporting to the application is done to a structure called a flash. flash is a hash bucket to contain your message until the next request before being deleted automatically. access it with the @flash variable. begin . rescue Exception => exc logger.error(message for the log file #{exc.message}) flash[:notice] = message here redirect_to(:action => index) end in the view or layout (.rhtml), you can add the following <% @flash[:notice] -%> <div id=notice><%= @flash[:notice] %></div> <% end -%>

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errors with validating or saving a model can also be displayed in a view(.rhtml) with this tag: <%= error_messages_for (:modelname) %>

Forms
<% start_form_tag :action => create %> <%= render(:partial => form) %> #this will render the file _form.rhtml <%= text_field (modelname, modelparam, :size => 40) %> <%= text_area (modelname,modelparam, rows => 4) %> <%= check_box (fieldname, name.id, {}, yes,no} %> <%= options = [[Yes,value_yes],[No,value_no]] select (modelname,modelparam, options) %> <%= submit_tag Do it %> <% end_form_tag %>

<%= check_box (fieldname, name.id, {}, yes,no} %> results in <input name=fieldname[name.id] type=checkbox value=yes /> name.id should increment on multiple selection pages. {} is an empty set of options yes is the checked value no is the unchecked value a Hash (fieldname) will be created, name.id will be the key and the value will be yes/no Static value arrays in Models PAYMENT_TYPES = [ [One,one], [Two,two], [Three,three] ].freeze #freeze to make array constant

Testing
rake test_units run unit tests rake test_functional run functional tests rake run all tests (default task) ruby test/unit/modelname_test.rb run individual test
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ruby test/unit/modelname_test.rb n test_update run a single test method ruby test/unit/modelname_test.rb n /validate/ run all test methods containing validate (regex) rake recent run tests for files which have changed in the last 10 minutes Unit tests are for Models and functional tests are for Controllers. Functional tests dont need a web server or a network. Use the @request & @response variables to simulate a web server. rake clone_structure_to_test to duplicate development database into the test database(without the data) create test data using fixtures (example fest/fixtures/users.yml) user_george: id: 1 first_name: George last_name: Curious user_zookeeper: id: 2 first_name: Mr last_name: Zookeeper each key/value pair must be separated by a colon and indented with spaces, not tabs fixture can then be referenced in a test file as follows: fixtures :users, :employees fixtures can include ERb code for dynamic results: date_available: <%= 1.day.from_now.strftime (%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S) %> password: <%= Digest::SHA1.hexdigest(youcando) %> create common objects in the setup() method so you dont have to recreate them repeatedly in each method. the teardown() method can also be used to clean up any tests. for example, if you have test methods which write to the database that arent using fixture data, this will need to be cleared manually in teardown() def teardown TableName.delete_all end

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test_helper.rb can be edited to create custom assertions. refactor repeating assertions into custom assertions. the first parameter is the result you expect, the second parameter is the actual result assert (boolean, message=nil) assert_equal (1, @user.id) assert_not_equal (expected, actual, message="") assert_instance_of (klass, object, message="") assert_kind_of (User, @user) assert_nil (object, message="") assert_not_nil (session[:user_id], message="User is empty") assert_throws (expected_symbol, message="") do ... end get :catch_monkey :id => @user_george.id post :login, :user => {:name => jim, :password =>tuba} assert_response :success (or :redirect, :missing, :error, 200, 404) assert_redirected_to :controller => login, :action => methodname assert_template login/index assert_tag :tag => div a <div> node must be in the page assert_tag :tag => div, :attributes => {:class => errorsArea} assert_tag :content => Curious Monkeys assert_not_nil assigns[items] or assert_not_nil assigns(:items) assert_equal Danger!, flash[:notice] assert_equal 2, session[:cart].items assert_equal http://localhost/myapp, redirect_to_url follow_redirect() simulates the browser being redirected to a new page tests can call another test as well. if a previous test sets up data, that test can be used inside of other tests relying on that previous data. also of note is that the order of tests occuring within a testcase is not guaranteed. each test method is isolated from changes made by the other test methods in the same test case before every test method: 1) database rows are deleted 2) the fixture files are populated in the database

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3) the setup() method is run fixture data can be referenced directly in tests: assert_equal user_zookeeper[id], @user.id the named fixtures are automatically assigned an instance variable name. user_zookeeper can be referenced by @user_zookeeper the previous test becomes assert_equal @user_zookeeper.id, @user.id check the log/test.log file for additional debugging into the SQL statements being called. create mock objects when external dependencies are required in testing. example, a mock object of models/cash_machine with only the external methods required to mock in it redefined: file /test/mocks/test/cash_machine.rb require models/cash_machine class CashMachine def make_payment(bill) :success #always returning a mock result end end gem install coverage install Ruby Coverage ruby rcoverage test/functional/my_controller_test.rb generates code coverage reports for performance and load testing, create performance fixtures in their own directory ( /test/fixtures/performance/orders.yml ) so theyre not loaded for regular testing. create performance tests at /test/performance ruby script/profiler & ruby script/benchmarker can be run to detect performance issues

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Ruby Language
local variables, method parameters, method names should all start with a lowercase letter or with an underscore: person, total_cost instance variables begin with @ use underscores to separate words in a multiword method or variable name such as long_document class names, module names and constants must start with an uppercase letter. WeatherMeter symbols look like :action and can be thought of as the thing named action to_s converts things to strings. to_i converts things to integers. to_a converts things to arrays. ruby comments start with a # character and run to the end of the line two-character indentation is used in Ruby Modules are like classes but you cannot create objects based on modules. They mostly are used for sharing common code between classes by mixing into a class and the methods become available to that class. this is mostly used for implementing helper methods. In arrays the key is an integer. Hashes support any object as a key. Both grow as needed so you dont have to worry about setting sizes. Its more efficient to access array elements, but hashes provide more flexibility. Both can hold objects of differing types. a = [1,car, 3.14] a[0] a[2] = nil << appends a value to its receiver, typically an array a = [ant,bee,cat,dog,elk] can be written as: a = %w{ ant bee cat dog elk} # shorthand

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Ruby hashes uses braces and symbols are usually the keys basketball_team = { :guard => carter, :center => ewing, :coach => jackson } to return values: basketball_team [:guard] #=> carter

Control Structures
if count > 10 ... elsif tries ==3 ... else ... end while weight <190 ... end unless condition body else body end blocks use braces for single-line blogkcs and do/end for multiline blocks {puts Hello} both are blocks do club.enroll(person) person.drink end case target-expr when comparison [, comparison]... [then]

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body when comparison [, comparison]... [then] body ... [else body] end until condition body end begin body end while condition begin body end until condition for name[, name]... in expr [do] body end expr.each do | name[, name]... | body end expr while condition expr until condition

Interactive Ruby
irb is a Ruby Shell, useful for trying out Ruby code % irb irb(main)> def sum(n1, n2) irb(main)> n1 + n2 irb(main)> end => nil irb(main)> sum (3,4) => 7 irb(main)> sum (cat,dog) => catdog

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RDoc Documentation
ri String .capitalize will show you the documentation for that method. ri String will show you the documentation for that class. you can access the Rails API documentation by running gem server and then going to http://localhost:8808 rake appdoc generates the HTML documentation for a project

External Links
wiki.rubyonrails.com search for login generator http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/show/AvailableGenerators http://damagecontrol.codehaus.org - continuous builds

What This Is
Ive been studying Ruby On Rails over the past few weeks and taking notes as I go. This is a result of my amassed noteset from reading books, tutorials and websites. I also find writing notes helps you to remember so this was also a memorization exercise for myself.

Document Versions
0.5 12/1/2005 First version. A list of notes from Agile Web Development with Rails, websites, tutorials, whytheluckystiff.net

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