Rails Beginners Guide

Rails
Web application framework written in ruby Based on Model View Controller architecture (MVC) Uses core APIs and generators to
reduce the coding burden and focus your efforts on value-adding development

Large community of developers

Provide support to each other Write gems (libraries) to extend the framework (see rubygems.org)

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Why Rails
Productive
Programming in Ruby is simpler Boiler plate already in place (e.g. binding objects between tiers) Gems for re-usable features

Each to understand
Convention over configuration Configuration-like programming e.g. ActiveRecord

Large community Matur(e/ing)

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Setup Getting your environment ready

Install
MySQL 5.X HeidiSQL (SQL Client) Ruby 1.8.7
http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/ Note version

Rails
gem install rails v=2.3.5

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Project Setup
Create a database
mysql u root -p create database library; GRANT ALL ON library.* TO library@localhost IDENTIFIED BY library ; FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Create a rails application

rails library

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Project Setup
Configure your application to communicate to the database
config/database.yml
development: adapter: mysql database: library username: library password: library host: localhost

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Concepts High-level Overview

Concepts
Rake Routes Migrations Generators Object relationships Validates

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Rake
Rake is rubys build program (similar to make and ant) Rake uses rakefiles to manage the build
Written in ruby Default one created for rails which includes standard tasks

Rake tasks are namespaced To see all the available rake tasks run rake T or rake tasks Most commonly used rake tasks
rake db:migrate migrate the database to the current version rake db:rollback move the database back a version rake test run all tests (unit tests and functional tests)

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Routes
The rails router matches incoming requests to controller actions Routes are configured in config/routes.rb Some generators add routes e.g. ruby script/generate scaffold cd name:string artist:string genre:string
Will add routes to add, delete, update, show, list posts

Routes can also be used to generate URLs for links, forms e.g.
link_to @cd.name, cd_path(@cd) creates a link to the post show page

The routes API supports a multitude of operations, a common ones is:

map.resources :cds creates CRUDL routes
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Migrations
Migrations allow you to manage a database through versions Each version is held in a separate timestamp prefixed file in db/migrate Each migration knows how to update the database (self.up) and how to rollback (self.down) Migrations are written in ruby and the migrations api supports a wide range of table and column alterations You can also run normal SQL and ruby code Every time a migration is run the <table> table is updated to include the timestamp Migrations with rake db:migrate and rake db:rollback
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Generators
Command line interface to run code generators Rails comes with a set of out of the box templates
You can customise these You can add your own

Typically generate classes into your app directory e.g.

ruby script/generate model cd name:string artist:string genre:string generates a model and associated files (tests, migrations) with the attributes specified ruby script/generate scaffold cd name:string artist:string genre:string - creates not only the model but also a CRUDL controller and views ruby script/generate migration add_record_label_to_cd creates a single migration

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Object relationships
ActiveRecord is ruby implementation of the active record pattern (Martin Fowler 2003) Set of meta-programming methods allow you to configure relationships in your model objects:
belongs_to :cd - for table holding pkey has_many :tracks - notice the plural, for connected table has_many :genres, :through => :cd_genres to link through a relationship table

Then you can call methods on your model objects e.g. @cd.tracks # array of tracks @cd.genres # array of genres @track.cd # cd model object

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Validations
Rails makes a set of validation methods available Configure them in your model object Rails validates on save and stores and saves it in <object>.errors Some examples:
validates_presence_of :title, :artist mandatory field checks validates_uniqueness_of :title each title can only be used once validates_numericality_of :quantity must be a number

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Console
Console lets you run your application through the command line and test out pieces of code To start a console session
ruby script/console

From there you can run ruby commands and will have access to all of your objects The console saves a lot of time loading and reloading web pages to test functionality Some useful commands
_ - provides access to the last result e.g. @cd = _ puts @cd.to_yaml (or y @cd) writes out an indented version of the object reload! reload the app <tab> - autocompletes methods
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Simple Project A CD library

Create your model and scaffold

rails library cd library ruby script/generate scaffold cd name:string artist:string genre:string rake db:migrate ruby script/server http://localhost:3000/cds

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Create relationships between models

ruby script/generate scaffold track name:string cd_id:integer rake db:migrate Create associations in the model classes
track.rb - belongs_to :cd cd.rb - has_many :track

Allow tracks to select an album in track/edit.html.erb

<%= select( track", cd_id", Cd.all.map {|cd| [cd.name, cd.id]}, { :include_blank => "No part of an album" }, {:class => "fieldSelect"}) %>

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Next Where to go next

Taking a step beyond the basics

Access other peoples shared code via gems and plugins
authlogic controllers and UI to enable authentication will_paginate rich pagination for lists cucumber behaviour driven testing faker data generator paperclip file attachments

Caching Rails.cache.read/write/delete and config for cache setup Deployment with capistrano Ajax via jQuery and format.js

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References Useful links

Further reading and videos

Railscasts http://www.railscasts.com
Video tutorials from Ryan Bates

Pivotal Labs - http://pivotallabs.com/talks

Wide range of talks including rails from leading tech company

has_many :through blog http://blog.hasmanythrough.com/

John Sussers blog, senior rails developer at Pivotal Labs

Ruby Doc - http://www.ruby-doc.org/

Ruby class documentation

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