Are those supported versions correct?

It seems like this method was supported in versions prior to 4.0.2.

UPDATE never mind, wish I could delete this comment..

This doesn't write files

This doesn’t write files, at least not anymore. Since at least rails 4 `Rack::Cache` isn’t included by default. In any case this method only ever set headers on the response.

Link with relative url

By default link_to opens url as absolute if path does not contain http:// or https:// For Ex.

link_to ‘View’, “test123.abc.com/ag/acf”, target: :_blank, title: “Click to open url in a new tab”

Then it’ll open the link with absolute path not only with test123.abc.com/ag/acf.

If link_to path contains http:// then it takes the relative url.

link_to ‘View’, “http://test123.abc.com/ag/acf”, target: :_blank, title: “Click to open url in a new tab”

Now it open the relative url as it contains.

add index directly

You can add an index now directly on the foreign_key :

t.references(:user, index: true)

Deprecation

It still exists but you give it a block instead of creating a method:

<=2.3.8

def before_create
  self.login = self.first_name
end

Now

before_create :set_login

def set_login
  self.login = self.first_name
end

What object_name.method values will result in checked chekboxes.

*It’s intended that method returns an integer and if that integer is above zero, then the checkbox is checked.* - more exactly, that’s how it’s determined whether value will be checked or not:

(`@checked_value` is checked_value, `value` is what object_name.method returns)

def checked?(value)
  case value
  when TrueClass, FalseClass 
    value == !!@checked_value
  when NilClass
    false
  when String
    value == @checked_value
  else
    if value.respond_to?(:include?)
      value.include?(@checked_value)
    else
      value.to_i == @checked_value.to_i
    end
  end
end

Parent associations are kept

Maybe this information will save you some time: parent associations (i.e. associations with foreign id in current record) are copied. Don’t assume you’ll get a safely editable object.

Passing a block does not behave as expected

When the condition is true, the block is not rendered:

<%= link_to_if true, users_path, {}, {} do %>
  <i class='fa fa-star'></i>
<% end %>

renders:

<a href="/users">/users</a>

But if the condition is false, the block will render:

<%= link_to_if false, users_path, {}, {} do %>
  <i class='fa fa-star'></i>
<% end %>

renders:

<i class='fa fa-star'></i>

If condition is false, options hash is ignored

Here, the class will be ignored:

<%= link_to_if false, 'Home', root_path, class: 'link' %> 
#=> Home

Save yourself a little typing

We often have a form with a select box that selects a model association. So for example to select a colour, when there is an associated Colour model, a select box will typically select :colour_id.

In this case, ActionView automatically humanizes :colour_id to produce “Colour” as the label text.

Wrong number of arguments (2 for 1)

If you get this error, wrap brackets with parentheses: Post.find_by_sql([“some query”])

number_field tag does not accept the same options as text_field_tag

number_field_tag does not accept the size or maxlength options; the max option for number_field_tag is used to control the size of the field. According to W3 http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/input.number.html , placeholder should be accepted, but I don’t find that this works in the way it works for text_field_tag.

Transactions and Stale ORM Data

Consider the following:

foo = Foo.new
bar = Bar.new

ActiveRecord::Base.transaction do
  foo.save! # succeeds
  bar.save! # failure, validation problem
end

foo.persisted? # true (!)

foo was not permanently stored in the database, but it was transiently saved, and this is reflected in the ActiveRecord model still in memory. But if you try

foo.reload # raises ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound

Don’t let stale data confuse you after using transactions!

Edited to add: This particular example does not succeed in reproducing the issue I encountered, which involved a slightly more complicated set of nested transactions. I haven’t managed to produce a simple test case where stale data remains in the model, but I have definitely experienced it in my app.

Transactions and Stale ORM Data

Consider the following:

ActiveRecord::Base.transaction do
  foo = Foo.new
  foo.save # succeeds

  bar = Bar.new
  bar.save # failure, validation problem
end

defaults to 40 columns, 20 rows

as you can see in InstanceTag

Not only for strings, but arrays and hashes too

exclude? is defined as !include?, meaning it is the exact opposite of include? . See the source.

This means that it works for Arrays and Hashes too, as well as for Strings.

It works for Arrays:

>> [nil].exclude?(nil)
=> false
>> [nil].include?(nil)
=> true
>> ["lala"].include?(nil)
=> false
>> ["lala"].exclude?(nil)
=> true

And for Hashes:

>> params = {}
=> {}
>> params[:db] = "lol"
=> "lol"
>> params.exclude?(:db)
=> false
>> params.include?(:db)
=> true
>> 

reorder

adding to stevo’s comment that reorder is also usefull when you have default scope in your model. eg: default_scope -> { order(created_at: :desc) }

Redirect to subdomain

If you’re looking to redirect to a subdomain you can do things like this:

redirect_to users_url(1, params: {a: :b}, subdomain: 'bob')

Why is this deprecated?

Anyone knows?

prepend_before_filter

If you need the method to be called at *the beginning* of the before_filter chain then you should use:

prepend_before_filter

Poor man's maybe

After creating a simple Maybe monad in Ruby, a colleaque noticed I could have just used try (I wasn’t aware try supports blocks). I think the method was even meant for such cases.

Why I mention this? Because it clarifies the whole ‘raises exception if method does not exist’ thing. It should not be crappy solution to exception handling, but allow for doing away with messy if statements. An example:

report = params[:query_type]
.try { |qt| build_query(qt) }
.try { |sql| run_query(sql) }
.try { |res| format_result(res) }

If any of the expressions params[], build_query, run_query etc. returns nil, the chain is halted and nil is returned. It still throws exceptions if a values is not nil and method does not exist, which is just like it should.

Be careful with cycles

This simplistic implementation (unlike Marshal.load(Marshal.dump(object)) doesn’t handle cycles in objects.

a = {}
b = {a: a}
a[:b] = b
a.deep_dup # SystemStackError: stack level too deep

An article about token-based authentication

www.codeschool.com/blog/2014/02/03/token-based-authentication-rails/

Have submit_tag send value as a nested resource

To have the submit_tag send it’s value within a nested resource for strong params use the name paramter.

submit_tag("Send", name: 'article[submit]')

Text improvement

Where it says: without loading a bunch of records should say: without loading a bunch of columns/attributes Considering that record usually is a row.

SQL Injection?

Note that the version of leente and timdorr are probably vulnerable to SQL Injection (through attribute param).

Probably you want to look into with_lock instead of handcrafting SQL.

arguments do not need to be an array

it’s a small point, but if you look at the source, the method is defined with the splat operator in the arguments:

def select (*fields)

this means that a list of arguments is automatically converted to an array. There is no typo in the description above.

It will also work to pass an array:

select([:field1, :field2])

although the select method interprets this as a single argument, and places it into an array (due to the splat operator), this is then passed to the _select(*fields) method, which immediately calls fields.flatten!

So either a list or an array may be passed, both will work.

How safe is this?

Could this be used against a user supplied fragment like in a url route ?

Rails 3.2 / 4.x with_scope replacement

If you’re looking for with_scope replacement for newer versions, see http://apidock.com/rails/ActiveRecord/Relation/scoping

Group method chain

The group_method parameter can be a string representing a method chain:

grouped_collection_select(:city, :country_id, @continents, 'countries.sort.reverse', :name, :id, :name)

If we were to modify the Country model so we can sort by name:

class Country
  include Comparable

  def <=>(other)
    self.name <=> other.name
  end
end

The above example would have given us the countries sorted by name in descending sequence.