Good notes posted to Ruby on Rails

Expressions in the sum method

Person.sum(“2 * age”)

Person.sum(:age, :conditions=>'1 = 2')

Method description from Rails 2.0

If text is longer than length, text will be truncated to the length of length (defaults to 30) and the last characters will be replaced with the truncate_string (defaults to “…”).

Examples

truncate("Once upon a time in a world far far away", 14)
# => Once upon a...

truncate("Once upon a time in a world far far away")
# => Once upon a time in a world f...

truncate("And they found that many people were sleeping better.", 25, "(clipped)")
# => And they found that many (clipped)

truncate("And they found that many people were sleeping better.", 15, "... (continued)")
# => And they found... (continued)

:expires_in option

If you need :expires_in functionality in Rails 2.1, you can use this plugin:

http://github.com/nickpad/rails-caches-action-patch/tree/master

Turn layout off with render

Thats awkward, but the code below does not turn layout off:

render :action => "short_goal", :layout => nil

you must use false

render :action => "short_goal", :layout => false

print standard-looking messages during migration

Within a migration file you can use the say_with_time method to print out informational messages that match the style of standard migration messages. See the say method also.

say_with_time "migrate existing data" do
  # ... execute migration sql ...
end
#=> "-- migrate existing data"
#=> "   -> 0.0299s"

:null => false

To not allow a column to have a NULL value, pass :null => false. Seems silly, but that’s it.

Strftime options

http://apidock.com/ruby/Time/strftime

Information on 'ModelName.transaction'

If you are looking for information about:

ModelName.transaction do
  ...
end

or

transaction do
  ...
end

see ActiveRecord::Transactions::ClassMethods

Information on 'ModelName.transaction'

If you are looking for information about:

ModelName.transaction do
  ...
end

or

transaction do
  ...
end

see ActiveRecord::Transactions::ClassMethods

Be careful with overriding dynamic attribute based finders

don’t try something like this:

class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base
  def self.find_by_bar(*args)
    foo = super(*args)
    raise SomeCustomException unless foo
    foo
  end
end

In newer versions of rails, method_missing defines find_by_bar when you first use it. By calling super, you’re triggering method_missing and overwriting your custom definition! It will work the first time then break! Manually write the call to find!

Reset a form

To reset a form easily you can do the following:

page["formid"].reset

Custom collection local variable name

Regarding the previous note from hoodow about using :variable_name to create a custom local variable name when rendering a collection with a partial, the argument should be :as instead of :variable_name, so:

render :partial => “video_listing”, :collection => @recommendations, :as => :video

This method has moved

To help anyone else looking, this method is now on the ActionView::Template class.

Testing protected controllers

When testing controllers which are protected with #authenticate_or_request_with_http_basic this is how you can supply the credentials for a successful login:

@request.env["HTTP_AUTHORIZATION"] = "Basic " + Base64::encode64("username:password")

Must be set before the request is sent through #get or whatever method.

Useful in migrations

The most common usage pattern for this method is probably in a migration, when just after creating a table you want to populate it with some default values, eg:

class CreateJobLevels < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    create_table :job_levels do |t|
      t.integer :id
      t.string :name

      t.timestamps
    end

    JobLevel.reset_column_information
    %w{assistant executive manager director}.each do |type|
      JobLevel.create(:name => type)
    end
  end

  def self.down
    drop_table :job_levels
  end
end

ActiveRecord::Base.include_root_in_json

From Rails 2.1 onwards, the variable

ActiveRecord::Base.include_root_in_json

affects how the JSON is generated. If this is true (default), then the JSON isn’t like the one above. Instead you’ll get:

konata = User.find(1)
konata.to_json
# => { "user": { "id": 1, "name": "Konata Izumi", "age": 16,
      "created_at": "2006/08/01", "awesome": true}}

(Note the model name is included as a root of the JSON object)

For Rails 2.1 generated projects, you’ll see this in the config/initializers/new_rails_defaults.rb file. You’ll need to set the value to false if you want the old behaviour.

ActiveRecord::Base.include_root_in_json = false

Always pass a block

I highly recommend always taking a block and passing it back up the chain if you use alias_method_chain, even if the original method does not. Otherwise you’re keeping anyone later in the chain from adding support for blocks.

http://tech.hickorywind.org/articles/2008/08/29/always-pass-a-block-when-using-alias_method_chain

Brazilian Real (R$ 1.200,95)

helper:

def number_to_currency_br(number)
  number_to_currency(number, :unit => "R$ ", :separator => ",", :delimiter => ".")
end

Get year to show in descending order (Today to 1920 for example)

The way people think of time start and end would be 1920 to today. This made me think “but I want it show the current year first then down.” Well it’s as simple as swapping the start_year and end_year.

date_select :date, :start_year => Date.current.year, :end_year => 1920

# => 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 ... 1920

Moved to ActiveRecord::Calculations::ClassMethods

It appears that this method has simply been moved to the module ActiveRecord::Calculations::ClassMethods. You can still use the example listed in the docs here, it will simply call the method ActiveRecord::Calculations::ClassMethods#count.

When using RESTful routes

I had issues using expire_page with RESTful controllers when expiring anything other than the index action because I was basing my expire_page calls off this example.

The solution is to use my_resource_path for example when User with id 5 is updated, you would have to do:

expire_page user_path(user) # or
expire_page formatted_user_path(user, :xml)

This may apply to early versions but I have only tested on v2.1.0

Only attr_accessible attributes will be updated

If your model specified attr_accessible attributes, only those attributes will be updated.

Use attr_accessible to prevent mass assignment (by users) of attributes that should not be editable by a user. Mass assignment is used in create and update methods of your standard controller.

For a normal user account, for example, you only want login and password to be editable by a user. It should not be possible to change the status attribute through mass assignment.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :login, :password
end

So, doing the following will merrily return true, but will not update the status attribute.

@user.update_attributes(:status => 'active')

If you want to update the status attribute, you should assign it separately.

@user.status = 'active'
save

Prototype hinted_text_field application_helper

Place this in your helper. It will show a message inside the text box and remove it when someone clicks on it. If they don’t enter a value when they leave the field it’ll replace the message. (Requires javascript :defaults).

def hinted_text_field_tag(name, value = nil, hint = "Click and enter text", options={})
  value = value.nil? ? hint : value
  text_field_tag name, value, {:onclick => "if($(this).value == '#{hint}'){$(this).value = ''}", :onblur => "if($(this).value == ''){$(this).value = '#{hint}'}" }.update(options.stringify_keys)
end

# inside form_for example

hinted_text_field_tag :search, params[:search], "Enter name, brand or mfg.", :size => 30  
# => <input id="search" name="search" onblur="if($(this).value == ''){$(this).value = 'Enter name, brand or mfg.'}" onclick="if($(this).value == 'Enter name, brand or mfg.'){$(this).value = ''}" size="30" type="text" value="Enter name, brand or mfg." />

Customizing prompt

The :prompt option not only accepts a boolean value. It can also be given a string to define another than the standard prompt ‘Please select’. Referring to the example it could read:

collection_select(:post, :author_id, Author.find(:all),
                  :id, :name_with_initial,
                 {:prompt => 'Please select the author of this post'})

Rake tasks for gem dependencies

You can manage installation and other tasks for these dependencies with rake tasks, for example:

rake gems:install              # Installs all required gems for this application
rake gems:unpack               # Unpacks the specified gem into vendor/gems

To get all rake tasks about gems:

rake -T gems

Disable default date

If you want a date selector that initially doesn’t have a date selected you can pass it the option :include_blank.

date_select("project", "due_date", :include_blank => true)

%w(true false) != [true, false]

Don´t confuse the right:

validates_inclusion_of :published, :in => [true, false]

with the wrong:

validates_inclusion_of :published, :in => %w(true false)

cause:

%w(true false) == ["true", "false"]

See TableDefinition#column for options

See http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/ConnectionAdapters/TableDefinition.html#M001150

Include two level has many model example

class Issue < ActiveRecord::Base

  has_many :journals
end

class Journal < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :issue
  has_many :details, :class_name => "JournalDetail", :dependent => :delete_all
end

class JournalDetail < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :journal
end

<hr/>

issue = Issue.find(:first, :include => {:journals => :details}

log record follow:

SELECT * FROM `issues` LIMIT 1
SELECT `journals`.* FROM `journals` WHERE (`journals`.`journalized_id` IN (1) and `journals`.`journalized_type` = 'Issue' AND (dustbin <> 1))
SELECT `journal_details`.* FROM `journal_details` WHERE (`journal_details`.journal_id IN (1,2,876177898,935815637))

when execute follow code, then not build sql sentent:

issue.journals
issue.journals[0].details

Doesn't add an index

Typically you will want to have an index on foreign keys but this method doesn’t assume that. Outside of the create_table block you should follow this with add_index :

add_index :table_name, :goat_id
# and, if polymorphic:
add_index :table_name, :goat_type