Rails Experiment

This project is used to experiment with Ruby on Rails.

Versions:

• Ruby 2.6.5
• Rails 5.0.2

Below are some helpful notes.

VSCode

The following extensions are recommended:

• Ruby
• Prettier - Code formatter

You will also need to install this gem (preferrably in a global gemset with RVM so that you can re-use it in other projects):

gem install rubocop

Then, add the following to the .vscode/settings.json file:

{
  "ruby.useLanguageServer": true,
  "ruby.format": false,
  "ruby.lint": {
    "rubocop": true
  }
}

To install the Ruby plugin for Prettier, run the following commands:

cd ~/.vscode/extensions/esbenp.prettier-vscode-{YOUR VERSION}/
npm install @prettier/plugin-ruby

Then, reload window in VSCode.

RVM

To manage different versions of Ruby, you can use RVM. That way, you can also create different gemsets to manage different versions of Rails.

Useful commands:

• rvm list
• rvm install {VERSION}
• rvm use {VERSION}
• rvm gemset list
• rvm gemset create {NAME}
• rvm gemset use {NAME}

After installing RVM, open the ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile file and add the following line:

source ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm

PostgreSQL

On Mac OS, you can install the PostgreSQL application. If that is the case, add the following line to the ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile file:

export PATH=$PATH:/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/latest/bin

Rails

Installation

To install Rails, select the appropriate gemset with RVM and run:

gem install rails

Use the -v flag to specify a version, for example:

gem install rails -v 5.0.2

To create a new Rails application, run:

rails new AppName

Use the --skip-coffee and --database=postgresql flags as needed.

You can also use -B to skip bundle install and -T to exclude tests.

NOTE: Depending on the Rails version, you might need to install a specific version of the bundler gem in your global gemset.

For example, with Rails 5.0.2, you need to run the following commands:

rvm gemset use global
gem install bundler -v 1.17.3

Database

To create and migrate the database, run:

rails db:create
rails db:migrate

Scaffolds

For example, run the following command to create a scaffold of a blog:

rails g scaffold Post title:string body:text

Controllers

For example, run the following command to create a controller for pages (plurial):

rails g controller Pages home about contact

Models

For example, run the following command to create a model for skill (singular):

rails g model Skill title:string percent_utilized:integer

Run rails db:migrate to update the schema.

To connect directly to the database, run rails c to open the console.

Then, to create a record for the Skill model, run:

Skill.create!(title: "Rails", percent_utilized: 75)

(add ! to throw errors)

Then, to show records, run Skill.all.

Resources

For example, run the following command to create a resource (minimalistic scaffold) for the portfolio (singular):

rails g resource Portfolio title:string subtitle:text body:text main_image:text thumb_image:text

Don't forget to run rails db:migrate to update the schema.

Generator Configuration

To configure generators, you can add the following to config/application.rb:

   config.generators do |g|
      g.orm             :active_record
      g.template_engine :erb
      g.test_framework  :test_unit, fixture: false
      g.stylesheets     false
      g.javascripts     true
   end

Then, to customize the templates, override files through the lib/ directory.

For more info: https://guides.rubyonrails.org/generators.html

Seeds

Add records to seed your database in the db/seeds.rb file.

Then, run the following command:

rails db:setup

(Careful, it will erase all existing data before running the seed file.)

Routes

Manage your app's routes via the config/routes.rb file.

You can also run the command rails routes to view all existing routes, their URI pattern and controller action.

Migration

For example, if you need to add something to the database, you can run:

rails g migration add_slug_to_blogs slug:string:uniq

(add and blogs means we will add something to the blogs table)

This will create a new migration file. Then run rails db:migrate.