Good notes posted to Ruby on Rails

default_scope on create

If you specify :conditions in your default_scope in form of a Hash, they will also be applied as default values for newly created objects. Example:

class Article
  default_scope :conditions => {:published => true}
end

Article.new.published? # => true

However:

class Article
  default_scope :conditions => 'published = 1'
end

Article.new.published? # => false

Easy workaround for missing :through option

Note that belongs_to does not support :through option like has_many (although IMHO it would make sense in some cases), but you can easily simulate it with delegate.

For example:

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :team
  ...
end
class Task < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :person
  delegate :team, :to => :person
end

There is of course more ways to do it, but this seems to be the easiest to me.

Extract the aggregated scoping options

If you want to get the aggregated scoping options of a chain of named scopes use ActiveRecord::Base.current_scoped_methods

It works in the fashion of:

Shirt.red.medium.alphabetical.current_scoped_methods
# ==>
{
  :create => {}, 
  :find => {
    :conditions => {:color => 'red', :size => 'medium'}, 
    :order => 'shirts.name ASC'
  } 
}

reload equivalent for models

The reset_column_information method provides a similar function for the model itself. Most useful during migrations.

Paying attention to query parameters

Standard action caching ignores query parameters, which means you’d get the same results for a URL with and without query parameters if it was action cached. You can make it pay attention to them by using a custom cache path like so:

caches_action :my_action, :cache_path => Proc.new { |c| c.params }

Or, maybe you want some of the query parameters, but not all to factor into different versions of that action’s cache:

:cache_path => Proc.new { |c| c.params.delete_if { |k,v| k.starts_with?('utm_') } }

Beware of things like pagination if you use expires_in to expire the cache, as pages could get out of sync.

Using html text instead of default response

If you have a string containing html and want to assert_select against it, as the doc states you have to pass in an element (HTML::Node) as the first argument. You can do something like this:

doc = HTML::Document.new('<p><span>example</span></p>')
assert_select doc.root, 'span'

Reverse version of camelize

Reverse version of camelize is underscore

Pretty way to test for current environment

You can check your current Rails environment using nice methods such as:

Rails.env.development?
Rails.env.test?
Rails.env.production?
Rails.env.your_custom_environment?

Doesn't return nil if the object you try from isn't nil.

Note that this doesn’t prevent a NoMethodError if you attempt to call a method that doesn’t exist on a valid object.

a = Article.new

a.try(:author) #=> #<Author ...>

nil.try(:doesnt_exist) #=> nil

a.try(:doesnt_exist) #=> NoMethodError: undefined method `doesnt_exist' for #<Article:0x106c7d5d8>

This is on Ruby 1.8.7 patchlevel 174

Version Ranges

To specify a version range, use array syntax like this:

config.gem 'paperclip', :version => ['>= 2.3.1.1', '< 3.0']

The example will, of course, match any version 2.3.1.1 or newer up until (not including) 3.0 or later.

Use hash form of updates argument

The examples are unfortunate, because passing a string as the updates argument is an invitation to SQL injection attacks. Don’t do this!

Billing.update_all("author='#{author}'")

Use the hash form of updates instead:

Billing.update_all(:author => author)

Then the SQL adapter will quote everything safely. Even if [you think] you’re sure there’s no quoting issue, it’s better to cultivate the habit of using the hash form just in case you missed something.

Same with conditions–use the hash or array form rather than a string if there are variables involved.

BTW, to do this and give options, of course you’ll need to put the braces back in:

Billing.update_all({:author => author},
                   ['title like ?', "#{prefix}%"])

Named scope better than conditions

In modern versions of Rails, in most cases a named_scope is a better alternative to using :conditions on your has_many relations. Compare:

class User
  has_many :published_posts, :conditions => {:published => true}
end
user.published_posts

with:

class Post
  named_scope :published, :conditions => {:published => true}
end
class User
  has_many :posts
end
user.posts.published

It’s better because the Post’s logic (“am I published?”) should not be coupled within User class. This makes it easier to refactor: e.g. if you wanted to refactor the boolean :published field into a :status field with more available values, you would not have to modify User class. Having to modify User when you refactor some implementation detail of Post class is clearly a code smell.

This also applies to :order, :group, :having and similar options.

How FormBuilders work

What, you were expecting documentation? :)

An excellent survey of how FormBuilders work is here:

http://code.alexreisner.com/articles/form-builders-in-rails.html

#blank?

The opposite of this is #blank?

#present?

The opposite of this is #present?

Update statement won't include all attributes with ActiveRecord::Dirty

With the addition of ActiveRecord::Dirty, the update statement will only feature changed columns, as opposed to the comment of railsmonk below.

Streaming XML with Builder

To generate larger XMLs, it’s a good idea to a) stream the XML and b) use Active Record batch finders.

Here’s one way of doing it:

def my_action
  @items = Enumerable::Enumerator.new(
    Item.some_named_scope,
    :find_each,
    :batch_size => 500)

  respond_to do |format|
    format.xml do
      render :text => lambda { |response, output|
        extend ApplicationHelper

        xml = Builder::XmlMarkup.new(
          :target => StreamingOutputWrapper.new(output),
          :indent => 2)
        eval(default_template.source, binding, default_template.path)
      }
    end
  end
end

The Builder template does not need to be modified.

form_tag with named route and html class

<% form_tag position_user_card_path(@user, card), :method => :put, :class => ‘position-form’ do %>

Pluralize Without Count

Helper method that returns the word without the count.

application_helper.rb

def pluralize_without_count(count, noun, text = nil)
  if count != 0
    count == 1 ? "#{noun}#{text}" : "#{noun.pluralize}#{text}"
  end
end

Example usage:

_form.html.erb

<%= pluralize_without_count(item.categories.count, 'Category', ':') %>

Will discard any order option

order_by(:created_at).find_each == FAIL!!!

class ActiveRecord::Base
  # normal find_each does not use given order but uses id asc
  def self.find_each_with_order(options={})
    raise "offset is not yet supported" if options[:offset]

    page = 1
    limit = options[:limit] || 1000

    loop do
      offset = (page-1) * limit
      batch = find(:all, options.merge(:limit=>limit, :offset=>offset))
      page += 1

      batch.each{|x| yield x }

      break if batch.size < limit
    end
  end
end

with_exclusive_scope example by Ramon broken in latest Rails

The example Ramon gave works within the model itself, i.e.

class Article
  def closed
    with_exclusive_scope { find(:all) }
  end
end

However, from what I can see, this approach does not work within a controller. You may be wanting to use

Article.with_exclusive_scope { find(:all) }  #=> "SELECT * FROM 'articles'

But it will error out about find(:all) not existing on ArticlesController. To get around this, you must now do

Article.with_exclusive_scope { Article.find(:all) }  #=> "SELECT * FROM 'articles'

In otherwards, find(:all) isn’t being executed in the scope of the model, but in the controller in which its called.

Took me a minute or two to find out, so I thought I’d let others know.

Join multiple tables

It’s easy to join multiple tables too. In this case we have:

class Article
  belongs_to :feed
end

class Feed
  has_many :articles
  belongs_to :source
end

class Source
  has_many :feeds
  # t.bool :visible
end

You can search articles and specify a condition on the sources table.

Article.find(:all, 
  :conditions => { :feeds => { :sources => { :visible => true }}}, 
  :joins => [:feed => :source],

Documentation bug

When adding the :target option, the documentation states that you should user :href_options like so:

auto_link(post_body, :href_options => { :target => '_blank' })

However, I could only get it to work using :html instead:

auto_link(post_body, :html => { :target => '_blank' })

I’m using Rails 2.2.2, but I believe that this also happens for more recent version .

Return True

As is the case with the before_validation and before_save callbacks, returning false will break the callback chain. For example, the expire_cache_id method will not run if Rails.cache.expire returns false (as it will if the key is not cached with memcache).

Returning False Example (Bad)

after_save :expire_cache_by_name
after_save :expire_cache_by_id

def expire_cache_by_name
  Rails.cache.expire("my_object:name:#{self.name}")
end

def expire_cache_by_id
  Rails.cache.expire("my_object:#{self.id}")
end

Returning True Example (Good)

def expire_cache_by_name
  Rails.cache.expire("my_object:name:#{self.name}")
  return true
end

def expire_cache_by_id
  Rails.cache.expire("my_object:#{self.id}")
  return true
end

Overriding default validation messages

Before Rails 2.2 you could globally customize the default validation error messages by changing AR::Base.default_error_messages. The messages have now been moved to i18n, so to customize them in 2.2 and up, just create a locales/ folder in your config/ folder, copy activerecord/lib/active_record/locale/en.yml (in Rails source) to config/locales/en.yml, and then change the strings inside. As szeryf indicated below, the strings of interest are activerecord.errors.messages.

Format meaning

%a - The abbreviated weekday name (“Sun”)

%A - The full weekday name (“Sunday”)

%b - The abbreviated month name (“Jan”)

%B - The full month name (“January”)

%c - The preferred local date and time representation

%d - Day of the month (01..31)

%H - Hour of the day, 24-hour clock (00..23)

%I - Hour of the day, 12-hour clock (01..12)

%j - Day of the year (001..366)

%m - Month of the year (01..12)

%M - Minute of the hour (00..59)

%p - Meridian indicator (“AM” or “PM”)

%S - Second of the minute (00..60)

%U - Week number of the current year, starting with the first Sunday as the first day of the first week (00..53)

%W - Week number of the current year, starting with the first Monday as the firstday of the first week (00..53)

%w - Day of the week (Sunday is 0, 0..6)

%x - Preferred representation for the date alone, no time

%X - Preferred representation for the time alone, no date

%y - Year without a century (00..99)

%Y - Year with century

%Z - Time zone name

%% - Literal “%” character

Options

Available options are (none of these exists by default):

* :limit - Requests a maximum column length. This is number of characters for :string and :text columns and number of bytes for :binary and :integer columns.
* :default - The column‘s default value. Use nil for NULL.
* :null - Allows or disallows NULL values in the column. This option could have been named :null_allowed.
* :precision - Specifies the precision for a :decimal column.
* :scale - Specifies the scale for a :decimal column.

Be careful with name of attribute writer

If restricting access to attributes you normally get code like

attr_accessible :foo,  

When using these nested attributes you end up with code like

attr_accessible :foo, :bar_attributes

Its very easy to leave of the _attributes suffix e.g

attr_accessible :foo, :bar

which will cause you all sorts of problems

Optional local assigns

When you have a partial with optional local assigns, for instance:

<%= render :partial => 'articles/preview' %>
<%= render :partial => 'articles/preview', :locals => { :show_call_out => true } %>

And you don’t want the partial to break when the local isn’t assigned, you can reference it through the local_assigns local variable instead of through the template binding:

<% if local_assigns[:show_call_out] %>
  <em><%= format @article.call_out %></em>
<% end %>

Not really deprecated

This isn’t really deprecated, it’s just relocated to ActiveRecord::AttributeMethods#read_attribute