hook_for

Invoke a generator based on the value supplied by the user to the given option named “name”. A class option is created when this method is invoked and you can set a hash to customize it.

Examples

module Rails::Generators
  class ControllerGenerator < Base
    hook_for :test_framework, :aliases => "-t"
  end
end

The example above will create a test framework option and will invoke a generator based on the user supplied value.

For example, if the user invoke the controller generator as:

rails generate controller Account --test-framework=test_unit

The controller generator will then try to invoke the following generators:

"rails:test_unit", "test_unit:controller", "test_unit"

Notice that “rails:generators:test_unit” could be loaded as well, what Rails looks for is the first and last parts of the namespace. This is what allows any test framework to hook into Rails as long as it provides any of the hooks above.

Options

The first and last part used to find the generator to be invoked are guessed based on class invokes hook_for, as noticed in the example above. This can be customized with two options: :base and :as.

Let’s suppose you are creating a generator that needs to invoke the controller generator from test unit. Your first attempt is:

class AwesomeGenerator < Rails::Generators::Base
  hook_for :test_framework
end

The lookup in this case for test_unit as input is:

"test_unit:awesome", "test_unit"

Which is not the desired the lookup. You can change it by providing the :as option:

class AwesomeGenerator < Rails::Generators::Base
  hook_for :test_framework, :as => :controller
end

And now it will lookup at:

"test_unit:controller", "test_unit"

Similarly, if you want it to also lookup in the rails namespace, you just need to provide the :base value:

class AwesomeGenerator < Rails::Generators::Base
  hook_for :test_framework, :in => :rails, :as => :controller
end

And the lookup is exactly the same as previously:

"rails:test_unit", "test_unit:controller", "test_unit"

Switches

All hooks come with switches for user interface. If you do not want to use any test framework, you can do:

rails generate controller Account --skip-test-framework

Or similarly:

rails generate controller Account --no-test-framework

Boolean hooks

In some cases, you want to provide a boolean hook. For example, webrat developers might want to have webrat available on controller generator. This can be achieved as:

Rails::Generators::ControllerGenerator.hook_for :webrat, :type => :boolean

Then, if you want, webrat to be invoked, just supply:

rails generate controller Account --webrat

The hooks lookup is similar as above:

"rails:generators:webrat", "webrat:generators:controller", "webrat"

Custom invocations

You can also supply a block to hook_for to customize how the hook is going to be invoked. The block receives two arguments, an instance of the current class and the klass to be invoked.

For example, in the resource generator, the controller should be invoked with a pluralized class name. But by default it is invoked with the same name as the resource generator, which is singular. To change this, we can give a block to customize how the controller can be invoked.

hook_for :resource_controller do |instance, controller|
  instance.invoke controller, [ instance.name.pluralize ]
end

# File railties/lib/rails/generators/base.rb, line 160
      def self.hook_for(*names, &block)
        options = names.extract_options!
        in_base = options.delete(:in) || base_name
        as_hook = options.delete(:as) || generator_name

        names.each do |name|
          defaults = if options[:type] == :boolean
            { }
          elsif default_value_for_option(name, options).in?([true, false])
            { :banner => "" }
          else
            { :desc => "#{name.to_s.humanize} to be invoked", :banner => "NAME" }
          end

          unless class_options.key?(name)
            class_option(name, defaults.merge!(options))
          end

          hooks[name] = [ in_base, as_hook ]
          invoke_from_option(name, options, &block)
        end
      end