Good notes posted by tadman

ActiveRecord::RecordNotSaved can be triggered by accidental false return values in callbacks

You may have this exception raised if any of the defined callbacks such as ActiveRecord::Base#before_save or ActiveRecord::Base#before_create return false.

This can happen accidentally. For example:

class MyModel < ActiveRecord::Base
  before_save :assign_default_foo

protected
  def assign_default_foo
    self.foo = false
  end
end

Since assign_default_foo leaves a false value on the stack, the model will not be saved. A way around this is to simply leave nil or an empty return instead:

class MyModel < ActiveRecord::Base
  before_save :assign_default_foo

protected
  def assign_default_foo
    self.foo = false
    nil
  end
end

Equivalent to Array#reject!

This method is functionally identical to Array#reject!

Tip: Define from_param(...) as Opposite

Often when defining a to_param method, it’s handy to introduce an opposite method for decoding them. For example:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  def self.from_param(param)
    find_by_name!(param)
  end

  def to_param
    name
  end
end

While you can just as easily redefine the find() method, this may be confusing since the expectation is that find() works with numerical IDs, or whatever the key column is defined as.

For the filename use File.basename

File.basename provides what File.dirname omits.

Argument Ordering

Be aware that the order of arguments for this method is the opposite of File.join:

File.expand_path('foo', '/bar')   # => "/bar/foo"
File.join('foo', '/bar')          # => "foo/bar"

To throw an exception, use Kernel#raise

Other languages use the term throw for raising exceptions, but Ruby has a specific raise call for that.

Parameters for Hash#inject

When running inject on a Hash, the hash is first converted to an array before being passed through.

The typical Enumerable#inject approach would be to simply capture the value:

array.inject(...) do |c, v|
end

In the case of a Hash, v is actually a key/value pair Array. That is the key is v.first and the value is v.last, however using the pair this way is awkward and can lead to confusion.

Better to simply expand the parameters in the block definition:

hash.inject(...) do |c, (k, v)|
end

Where c is the traditional carry variable and k/v represent key and value respectively.

Define handlers in order of most generic to most specific

The later the definition of the rescue handler, the higher the priority:

rescue_from Exception, :with => :error_generic
rescue_from Exception::ComputerOnFire, :with => :panic

Declaring the Exception catch-all handler last would have the side-effect of precluding any other handlers from running.

This is what is meant by being “searched…from bottom to top”.

Method has moved to ActionController::Rescue::ClassMethods module

This method has simply moved, still works the same way in 2.3+

New location: ActiveSupport::Rescuable::ClassMethods#rescue_from

Sorting Hashes with Symbol Keys

To sort a hash with symbol keys, use Enumerable#sort_by:

h = { :a => 20, :b => 30, :c => 10  }
h.sort                       # => NoMethodError: undefined method `<=>' for :a:Symbol
h.sort_by { |k,v| k.to_s }   # => [[:a, 20], [:b, 30], [:c, 10]]