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March 10, 2009 - (>= v2.1.0)
8 thanks

Use lambda to avoid caching of generated query

If you’re using a named_scope that includes a changing variable you need to wrap it in a lambda to avoid the query being cached and thus becoming unaffected by future changes to the variable, example:

named_scope :translated, :conditions => { :locale => I18n.locale }

Will always return the same locale after the first hit even though I18n.locale might change. So do this instead:

named_scope :translated, lambda { { :conditions => { :locale => I18n.locale } } }

Ugly, but at least it’s working as we expect it…

March 10, 2009
1 thank

Image as a submit button

use image_sugmit_tag to use an image as a submit button

March 9, 2009
0 thanks

Memoize will not cache singleton methods

The following does not work:

class PersonType < ActiveRecord::Base
  extend ActiveSupport::Memoizable
  class << self
    def mister
      find_by_name('Mister')
    end
    memoize :mister
  end

I guess one could extend the superclass, Class, with Memoizable support, but that seems Evil.

March 6, 2009
2 thanks

Selected parameter needs an int

In order to pre-select an option, you can pass a fourth parameter. However, that parameter MUST be of integer type, so if you’re trying to set selected from the params hash, you must add to_i at the end of it.

<%= select_tag("job[state_id]", options_from_collection_for_select(State.find(:all), "id", "name", params[:state_id].to_i)) %>
March 5, 2009
7 thanks

String#match will match single token only

>> s = “{{person}} ate {{thing}}”

> “{{person}} ate {{thing}}”

>> r = /{{(.*?)}}/

> {{}}

>> s.match®.captures

> [“person”]

Using String#scan pulls out all tokens you were searching for:

>> s.scan®.flatten

> [“person”, “thing”]

March 5, 2009
1 thank

Mistake

It’s not:

user = User.find_by_name('Phusion')
user_path(path)  

It’s:

user = User.find_by_name('Phusion')
user_path(user)  
March 4, 2009
10 thanks

Differences between normal or-assign operator

Differences between this method and normal memoization with ||=:

  • memoize works with false/nil values

  • Potential arguments are memoized

Take the following example:

def allowed?
  @allowed ||= begin
    # Big calculation
    puts "Worked"
    false
  end
end

allowed? # Outputs "Worked"
allowed? # Outputs "Worked" again

Since @allowed is set to false (this is also applicable with nil), the ||= operator will move on the the next statement and will not be short-circuited.

When you use memoize you will not have this problem.

def allowed?
  # Big calculation
  puts "Worked"
  false
end
memoize :allowed?

allowed? # Outputs "Worked"
allowed? # No output

Now, look at the case where we have parameters:

def random(max=10)
  @random ||= rand(max)
end

random     # => 4
random     # => 4 -- Yay!
random(20) # => 4 -- Oops!

Better use memoize again!

def random(max=10)
  rand(max)
end
memoize :random

random     # => 6
random     # => 6 -- Yay!
random(20) # => 12 -- Double-Yay!
random     # => 6 -- Head a'splode
March 4, 2009
5 thanks

Usage

This defines attr_accessors at a class level instead of instance level.

class Foo
  cattr_accessor :greeting
end

Foo.greeting = "Hello"

This could be compared to, but is not the same as doing this:

class Bar
  class << self
    attr_accessor :greeting
  end
end

Bar.greeting = "Hello"

The difference might not be apparent at first, but cattr_accessor will make the accessor inherited to the instances:

Foo.new.greeting #=> "Hello"
Bar.new.greeting # NoMethodError: undefined method `greeting' for #<Bar:0x18e4d78>

This inheritance is also not copy-on-write in case you assumed that:

Foo.greeting  #=> "Hello"
foo1, foo2 = Foo.new, Foo.new

foo1.greeting = "Hi!"

Foo.greeting  #=> "Hi!"
foo2.greeting #=> "Hi!"

This makes it possible to share common state (queues, semaphores, etc.), configuration (max value, etc.) or temporary values through this.

March 3, 2009
0 thanks

Specify controller

If needed, you can also specify a controller.

redirect_to :controller => 'post', :action => 'index'
March 3, 2009
9 thanks

File class documentation

Most of the File class documentation is located in IO class docs. What you see here is what ‘ftools’ gives you.

March 3, 2009 - (<= v2.2.1)
1 thank

Multiple associations on the same level

You can also specify multiple associations that are on the same level, like this:

konata = User.find(1)
konata.to_json(:include => [:posts, :roles])

{"id": 1, "name": "Konata Izumi", "age": 16,
 "created_at": "2006/08/01", "awesome": true,
 "posts": [{"id": 1, "author_id": 1, "title": "Welcome to the weblog"},
           {"id": 2, author_id: 1, "title": "So I was thinking"}],
 "roles": [{"id":1, "user_id":1, "name": "Admin"},
           {"id":2, "user_id":1, "name": "Moderator"}]}
March 2, 2009
2 thanks

Valid options changed in Rails v2.3.0 RC1

The valid options in Rails v2.3.0 RC1 are no longer

:connector and :skip_last_comma, but

:words_connector, :two_words_connector, and :last_word_connector:

>> %w(lorem ipsum dolor sit).to_sentence
=> "lorem, ipsum, dolor, and sit"

>> %w(lorem ipsum dolor sit).to_sentence(:words_connector => ' + ')
=> "lorem + ipsum + dolor, and sit"

>> %w(lorem ipsum).to_sentence(:two_words_connector => ' through ')
=> "lorem through ipsum"

# No effect if more than two words
>> %w(lorem ipsum dolor sit).to_sentence(:two_words_connector => ' through ')
=> "lorem, ipsum, dolor, and sit"

>> %w(lorem ipsum dolor sit).to_sentence(:last_word_connector => ' or ')
=> "lorem, ipsum, dolor or sit"
March 1, 2009
2 thanks

used for testing

for example, to use the @message instance variable in a view test,

assigns[:message] = @message

you could type

assigns[:foo] = @message

and then message would be available to the view as @foo.

February 28, 2009
0 thanks

Exceptions while debugging

If the error wasn’t stored in a variable, you can still see it by looking at the global variable $ERROR_INFO.

February 28, 2009
1 thank

rescue

Store exceptions using ‘rescue => var’

begin                              
  x = factorial(-1)             
rescue => ex                       
  puts "#{ex.class}: #{ex.message}"
end                                
February 27, 2009
6 thanks

Extend with an anonymous module

You can extend with an anonymous module for one-off cases that won’t be repeated:

belongs_to :container, :polymorphic => true, :extend => ( Module.new do
    def find_target
      ...
    end
  end )

The parentheses are important, will fail silently without them.

February 27, 2009 - (v1.2.6 - v2.2.1)
0 thanks

read_attribute?

The source if this method and other methods indicate the reading of read_attribute (protected)

there is no documentation about the insides of this method, the only entry listed is read_attribute (private) which is deprecated since 1.2.6?

February 26, 2009 - (v1.0.0 - v2.1.0)
0 thanks

Conflicts with Ruby 1.8.7

Using this with Rails < 2.2.x and Ruby 1.8.7 will create a conflict between ActiveSupport and Ruby, generating the following error:

>> '/'.first
NoMethodError: undefined method `[]' for #<Enumerable::Enumerator:0x176b974>
  from /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-2.0.2/lib/active_support/core_ext/string/access.rb:43:in `first'

So if using an older version of Rails with Ruby 1.8.7, use String to instead of String.first

February 25, 2009
0 thanks

Always a String

Remember that even if you ask for one field that is a number, a String will be returned:

Time.now.strftime("%j") #=> "055"
February 24, 2009
9 thanks

Specialized versions of find with method_missing

Check ActiveRecord::Base.method_missing for documentation on the family of “magic” find methods (find_by_x, find_all_by_x, find_or_create_by_x, etc.).

February 24, 2009 - (>= v2.2.1)
5 thanks

ATM does not work in Rails 2.3 Edge

add to test/spec_helper to make it work again…

#spec_helper / test_helper
include ActionController::TestProcess
February 24, 2009
2 thanks

Test if one array includes the elements of another v2

Maybe a bit more readable way to write the previous snippet would’ve been

puts "yay" if [1, 2, 3].all? { |i| (1..9).include?(i) }
# => "yay"

puts "nope" if [1, 2, 3, 'A'].any? { |i| not (1..9).include?(i) }
# => "nope"
February 24, 2009
0 thanks

Test if one array includes the elements of another

Recently I’ve written this little snippet:

puts "yay" if [1, 2, 3].each {|i| break unless (1..9).to_a.include?(i)}
# => "yay"

puts "nope" unless [1, 2, 3, 'A'].each {|i| break unless (1..9).to_a.include?(i)}
# => "nope"
February 24, 2009
0 thanks

Validate an optional URL field

Let’s say that you have an optional URL field to one of your models and you want to validate the URL. You can accomplish this by using the URI library:

require 'uri' # Put this at the beginning of your model file

validates_each :url, :allow_blank => true do |record, field, value|
  begin
    valid = (URI.parse(value).scheme =~ /https?/)
  rescue URI::InvalidURIError
    valid = false
  end
  record.errors.add field, "not a valid url" unless valid
end

If you want to add even more testing in there, just go ahead. For now, we just check that the link is to a HTTP resource, but you might have other requirements. This will allow stuff like “http://example” since “example” might be a valid intranet domain. If you want to check for a TLD in there, you can do so with a simple regexp.

For more information about the URI library, check out http://apidock.com/ruby/URI/

February 23, 2009 - (<= v2.2.1)
1 thank

You can't have many :through with habtm

Imagine the following

a has_many b
b has_and_belongs_to_many c
a has_many c :through => b

a.b works fine

b.c works fine

a.c throws an error!

has_many :through where the through association is a habtm is not supported in Rails. The error is:

ActiveRecord::HasManyThroughSourceAssociationMacroError: Invalid source reflection macro :has_and_belongs_to_many for has_many :stories, :through => :subcategories. Use :source to specify the source reflection

Specifying the source reflection still won’t help you though, because this kind of has_many :through isn’t supported at all.

February 23, 2009
6 thanks

Nested with_options

You can nest with_options blocks, and you can even use the same name for the block parameter each time. E.g.:

class Product
  with_options :dependent => :destroy do |product|
    product.with_options :class_name => 'Media' do |product|
      product.has_many :images, :conditions => {:content_type => 'image'}
      product.has_many :videos, :conditions => {:content_type => 'video'}
    end

    product.has_many :comments
  end
end
February 23, 2009
2 thanks

Check if value is included in array of valid values

If you want to check the value of an attribute using an array of valid values, the array has to be defined before the validation, so

validates_inclusion_of :name, :in => VALID_NAMES
VALID_NAMES = %w(Peter Paul Mary)

won’t work, but

VALID_NAMES = %w(Peter Paul Mary)
validates_inclusion_of :name, :in => VALID_NAMES

will.

February 22, 2009
3 thanks

CAUTION! :frequency option description is misleading

To use event-based observer, don’t supply :frequency param at all. :frequency => 0 causes JS error.

Use this option only if time-based observer is what you need.

February 20, 2009
5 thanks

Static and dynamic attachments

You can attach static files directly:

attachment :content_type => "image/jpeg", :body => File.read("someimage.jpg")

and you can also define attachments dynamically by using a block:

attachment "text/csv" do |a|
  a.body = my_data.to_csv
end
February 18, 2009
4 thanks

Turn off for individual controllers/actions

To disable protection for all actions in your controller use skip_before_filter:

skip_before_filter :verify_authenticity_token

You can also pass :only and :except to disable protection for specific actions, e.g:

skip_before_filter :verify_authenticity_token, :only => :index