Group items tagged

Associations are implemented using macro-style calls, so that you can declaratively add features to your models

A belongs_to association sets up a one-to-one connection with another model, such that each instance of the declaring model "belongs to" one instance of the other model.

belongs_to

A has_one association also sets up a one-to-one connection with another model, but with somewhat different semantics (and consequences).

belongs_to

A has_many association indicates a one-to-many connection with another model.

This association indicates that each instance of the model has zero or more instances of another model.

belongs_to

A has_many :through association is often used to set up a many-to-many connection with another model

This association indicates that the declaring model can be matched with zero or more instances of another model by proceeding through a third model.

through:

through:

The collection of join models can be managed via the API

new join models are created for newly associated objects, and if some are gone their rows are deleted.

The has_many :through association is also useful for setting up "shortcuts" through nested has_many associations

A has_one :through association sets up a one-to-one connection with another model. This association indicates that the declaring model can be matched with one instance of another model by proceeding through a third model.

A has_and_belongs_to_many association creates a direct many-to-many connection with another model, with no intervening model.

id: false

The has_one relationship says that one of something is yours

using t.references :supplier instead.

declare a many-to-many relationship is to use has_many :through. This makes the association indirectly, through a join model

set up a has_many :through relationship if you need to work with the relationship model as an independent entity

set up a has_and_belongs_to_many relationship (though you'll need to remember to create the joining table in the database).

use has_many :through if you need validations, callbacks, or extra attributes on the join model

With polymorphic associations, a model can belong to more than one other model, on a single association.

a polymorphic belongs_to declaration as setting up an interface that any other model can use.

In designing a data model, you will sometimes find a model that should have a relation to itself

add a references column to the model itself

All of the association methods are built around caching, which keeps the result of the most recent query available for further operations.

it is a bad idea to give an association a name that is already used for an instance method of ActiveRecord::Base. The association method would override the base method and break things.

belongs_to associations you need to create foreign keys

has_and_belongs_to_many associations you need to create the appropriate join table

So a join between customer and order models will give the default join table name of "customers_orders" because "c" outranks "o" in lexical ordering.

For example, one would expect the tables "paper_boxes" and "papers" to generate a join table name of "papers_paper_boxes" because of the length of the name "paper_boxes", but it in fact generates a join table name of "paper_boxes_papers" (because the underscore '' is lexicographically _less than 's' in common encodings).

id: false

pass id: false to create_table because that table does not represent a model

By default, associations look for objects only within the current module's scope.

will work fine, because both the Supplier and the Account class are defined within the same scope.

To associate a model with a model in a different namespace, you must specify the complete class name in your association declaration:

class_name

class_name

Active Record provides the :inverse_of option

Every association will attempt to automatically find the inverse association and set the :inverse_of option heuristically (based on the association name)

In database terms, this association says that this class contains the foreign key.

In all of these methods, association is replaced with the symbol passed as the first argument to belongs_to.

(force_reload = false)

The association method returns the associated object, if any. If no associated object is found, it returns nil.

the cached version will be returned.

The association= method assigns an associated object to this object.

Behind the scenes, this means extracting the primary key from the associate object and setting this object's foreign key to the same value.

The build_association method returns a new object of the associated type

The create_association method returns a new object of the associated type

raises ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid if the record is invalid.

dependent

counter_cache

:autosave :class_name :counter_cache :dependent :foreign_key :inverse_of :polymorphic :touch :validate

finding the number of belonging objects more efficient.

Although the :counter_cache option is specified on the model that includes the belongs_to declaration, the actual column must be added to the associated model.

:destroy, when the object is destroyed, destroy will be called on its associated objects.

The :inverse_of option specifies the name of the has_many or has_one association that is the inverse of this association

set the :touch option to :true, then the updated_at or updated_on timestamp on the associated object will be set to the current time whenever this object is saved or destroyed

specify a particular timestamp attribute to update

If you set the :validate option to true, then associated objects will be validated whenever you save this object

where includes readonly select

make your code somewhat more efficient

no need to use includes for immediate associations

will be read-only when retrieved via the association

The select method lets you override the SQL SELECT clause that is used to retrieve data about the associated object

using the association.nil?

In database terms, this association says that the other class contains the foreign key.

the cached version will be returned.

:as :autosave :class_name :dependent :foreign_key :inverse_of :primary_key :source :source_type :through :validate

Setting the :as option indicates that this is a polymorphic association

:nullify causes the foreign key to be set to NULL. Callbacks are not executed.

It's necessary not to set or leave :nullify option for those associations that have NOT NULL database constraints.

The :source_type option specifies the source association type for a has_one :through association that proceeds through a polymorphic association.

The :source option specifies the source association name for a has_one :through association.

The :through option specifies a join model through which to perform the query

more efficient by including representatives in the association from suppliers to accounts

When you assign an object to a has_one association, that object is automatically saved (in order to update its foreign key).

If either of these saves fails due to validation errors, then the assignment statement returns false and the assignment itself is cancelled.

If the parent object (the one declaring the has_one association) is unsaved (that is, new_record? returns true) then the child objects are not saved.

If you want to assign an object to a has_one association without saving the object, use the association.build method

collection(force_reload = false) collection<<(object, ...) collection.delete(object, ...) collection.destroy(object, ...) collection=(objects) collection_singular_ids collection_singular_ids=(ids) collection.clear collection.empty? collection.size collection.find(...) collection.where(...) collection.exists?(...) collection.build(attributes = {}, ...) collection.create(attributes = {}) collection.create!(attributes = {})

In all of these methods, collection is replaced with the symbol passed as the first argument to has_many, and collection_singular is replaced with the singularized version of that symbol.

The collection<< method adds one or more objects to the collection by setting their foreign keys to the primary key of the calling model

The collection.delete method removes one or more objects from the collection by setting their foreign keys to NULL.

objects will be destroyed if they're associated with dependent: :destroy, and deleted if they're associated with dependent: :delete_all

The collection.destroy method removes one or more objects from the collection by running destroy on each object.

The collection_singular_ids method returns an array of the ids of the objects in the collection.

The collection_singular_ids= method makes the collection contain only the objects identified by the supplied primary key values, by adding and deleting as appropriate

The default strategy for has_many :through associations is delete_all, and for has_many associations is to set the foreign keys to NULL.

The collection.clear method removes all objects from the collection according to the strategy specified by the dependent option

uses the same syntax and options as ActiveRecord::Base.find

The collection.where method finds objects within the collection based on the conditions supplied but the objects are loaded lazily meaning that the database is queried only when the object(s) are accessed.

The collection.build method returns one or more new objects of the associated type. These objects will be instantiated from the passed attributes, and the link through their foreign key will be created, but the associated objects will not yet be saved.

The collection.create method returns a new object of the associated type. This object will be instantiated from the passed attributes, the link through its foreign key will be created, and, once it passes all of the validations specified on the associated model, the associated object will be saved.

:as :autosave :class_name :dependent :foreign_key :inverse_of :primary_key :source :source_type :through :validate

:nullify causes the foreign keys to be set to NULL. Callbacks are not executed.

where includes readonly select

:conditions :through :polymorphic :foreign_key

By convention, Rails assumes that the column used to hold the primary key of the association is id. You can override this and explicitly specify the primary key with the :primary_key option.

The :source option specifies the source association name for a has_many :through association.

You only need to use this option if the name of the source association cannot be automatically inferred from the association name.

The :source_type option specifies the source association type for a has_many :through association that proceeds through a polymorphic association.

The :through option specifies a join model through which to perform the query.

has_many :through associations provide a way to implement many-to-many relationships,

By default, this is true: associated objects will be validated when this object is saved.

where extending group includes limit offset order readonly select uniq

If you use a hash-style where option, then record creation via this association will be automatically scoped using the hash

The extending method specifies a named module to extend the association proxy.

Association extensions

The group method supplies an attribute name to group the result set by, using a GROUP BY clause in the finder SQL.

more efficient by including line items in the association from customers to orders

The limit method lets you restrict the total number of objects that will be fetched through an association.

The offset method lets you specify the starting offset for fetching objects via an association

The order method dictates the order in which associated objects will be received (in the syntax used by an SQL ORDER BY clause).

Use the distinct method to keep the collection free of duplicates.

mostly useful together with the :through option

-> { distinct }

.all.inspect

If you want to make sure that, upon insertion, all of the records in the persisted association are distinct (so that you can be sure that when you inspect the association that you will never find duplicate records), you should add a unique index on the table itself

Do not attempt to use include? to enforce distinctness in an association.

When you assign an object to a has_many association, that object is automatically saved (in order to update its foreign key).

If any of these saves fails due to validation errors, then the assignment statement returns false and the assignment itself is cancelled.

If the parent object (the one declaring the has_many association) is unsaved (that is, new_record? returns true) then the child objects are not saved when they are added

assign an object to a has_many association without saving the object, use the collection.build method

collection(force_reload = false) collection<<(object, ...) collection.delete(object, ...) collection.destroy(object, ...) collection=(objects) collection_singular_ids collection_singular_ids=(ids) collection.clear collection.empty? collection.size collection.find(...) collection.where(...) collection.exists?(...) collection.build(attributes = {}) collection.create(attributes = {}) collection.create!(attributes = {})

If the join table for a has_and_belongs_to_many association has additional columns beyond the two foreign keys, these columns will be added as attributes to records retrieved via that association.

If you require this sort of complex behavior on the table that joins two models in a many-to-many relationship, you should use a has_many :through association instead of has_and_belongs_to_many.

The collection.delete method removes one or more objects from the collection by deleting records in the join table

The collection.destroy method removes one or more objects from the collection by running destroy on each record in the join table, including running callbacks.

The collection.clear method removes every object from the collection by deleting the rows from the joining table.

The collection.find method finds objects within the collection. It uses the same syntax and options as ActiveRecord::Base.find.

The collection.where method finds objects within the collection based on the conditions supplied but the objects are loaded lazily meaning that the database is queried only when the object(s) are accessed.

The collection.exists? method checks whether an object meeting the supplied conditions exists in the collection.

The collection.build method returns a new object of the associated type.

The collection.create method returns a new object of the associated type.

it passes all of the validations specified on the associated model

:association_foreign_key :autosave :class_name :foreign_key :join_table :validate

The :foreign_key and :association_foreign_key options are useful when setting up a many-to-many self-join.

Rails assumes that the column in the join table used to hold the foreign key pointing to the other model is the name of that model with the suffix _id added.

If you set the :autosave option to true, Rails will save any loaded members and destroy members that are marked for destruction whenever you save the parent object.

By convention, Rails assumes that the column in the join table used to hold the foreign key pointing to this model is the name of this model with the suffix _id added.

By default, this is true: associated objects will be validated when this object is saved.

where extending group includes limit offset order readonly select uniq

set conditions via a hash

In this case, using @parts.assemblies.create or @parts.assemblies.build will create orders where the factory column has the value "Seattle"

using a GROUP BY clause in the finder SQL.

Use the uniq method to remove duplicates from the collection.

assign an object to a has_and_belongs_to_many association, that object is automatically saved (in order to update the join table).

If any of these saves fails due to validation errors, then the assignment statement returns false and the assignment itself is cancelled.

If the parent object (the one declaring the has_and_belongs_to_many association) is unsaved (that is, new_record? returns true) then the child objects are not saved when they are added.

If you want to assign an object to a has_and_belongs_to_many association without saving the object, use the collection.build method.

Normal callbacks hook into the life cycle of Active Record objects, allowing you to work with those objects at various points

define association callbacks by adding options to the association declaration

stack callbacks on a single event by passing them as an array

If a before_add callback throws an exception, the object does not get added to the collection.

if a before_remove callback throws an exception, the object does not get removed from the collection

extend these objects through anonymous modules, adding new finders, creators, or other methods.

order_number

use a named extension module

proxy_association.owner returns the object that the association is a part of.

config/environments/production.rb

Create an additional staging environment that closely resembles the production one

Keep any additional configuration in YAML files under the config/ directory

Rails::Application.config_for(:yaml_file)

Use nested routes to express better the relationship between ActiveRecord models

nest routes more than 1 level deep then use the shallow: true option

namespaced routes to group related actions

Keep the controllers skinny

all the business logic should naturally reside in the model

Share no more than two instance variables between a controller and a view.

using a template

Prefer corresponding symbols to numeric HTTP status codes

without abbreviations

Keep your models for business logic and data-persistence only

Avoid altering ActiveRecord defaults (table names, primary key, etc)

Prefer has_many :through to has_and_belongs_to_many

self[:attribute]

self[:attribute] = value

validates

Consider extracting custom validators to a shared gem

preferable to make a class method instead which serves the same purpose of the named scope

.update_attributes

Override the to_param method of the model

Use the friendly_id gem. It allows creation of human-readable URLs by using some descriptive attribute of the model instead of its id

.find_each

.find_each

Looping through a collection of records from the database (using the all method, for example) is very inefficient since it will try to instantiate all the objects at once

always call before_destroy callbacks that perform validation with prepend: true

When persisting AR objects

Avoid string interpolation in queries

param will be properly escaped

Consider using named placeholders instead of positional placeholders

use of find over where when you need to retrieve a single record by id

use of find_by over where and find_by_attribute

use of where.not over SQL

use heredocs with squish

Use rake db:schema:load instead of rake db:migrate to initialize an empty database

change_column_default

imposing data integrity from the Rails app is impossible

use the change method instead of up and down methods.

constructive migrations

use models in migrations, make sure you define them so that you don't end up with broken migrations in the future

In this case, block will be used by create_table in rollback

Never make complex formatting in the views, export the formatting to a method in the view helper or the model.

When the labels of an ActiveRecord model need to be translated, use the activerecord scope

Separate the texts used in the views from translations of ActiveRecord attributes

config/application.rb config.i18n.load_path += Dir[Rails.root.join('config', 'locales', '**', '*.{rb,yml}')]

I18n.t

I18n.l

Use "lazy" lookup for the texts used in views.

Use the dot-separated keys in the controllers and models

Reserve app/assets for custom stylesheets, javascripts, or images

Third party code such as jQuery or bootstrap should be placed in vendor/assets

Provide both HTML and plain-text view templates

config.action_mailer.raise_delivery_errors = true

Use a local SMTP server like Mailcatcher in the development environment

Provide default settings for the host name

The _url methods include the host name and the _path methods don't

Format the from and to addresses properly

default from:

sending html emails all styles should be inline

Sending emails while generating page response should be avoided. It causes delays in loading of the page and request can timeout if multiple email are sent.

.start_with?

.end_with?

&.

Config your timezone accordingly in application.rb

config.active_record.default_timezone = :local

it can be only :utc or :local

Time.zone.parse

Time.zone.now

view templates are written in a language called ERB (Embedded Ruby) which is converted by the request cycle in Rails before being sent to the user.

Each action's purpose is to collect information to provide it to a view.

A view's purpose is to display this information in a human readable format.

routing file which holds entries in a special DSL (domain-specific language) that tells Rails how to connect incoming requests to controllers and actions.

You can create, read, update and destroy items for a resource and these operations are referred to as CRUD operations

A controller is simply a class that is defined to inherit from ApplicationController.

If not found, then it will attempt to load a template called application/new. It looks for one here because the PostsController inherits from ApplicationController

:formats specifies the format of template to be served in response. The default format is :html, and so Rails is looking for an HTML template.

:handlers, is telling us what template handlers could be used to render our template.

When you call form_for, you pass it an identifying object for this form. In this case, it's the symbol :post. This tells the form_for helper what this form is for.

that the action attribute for the form is pointing at /posts/new

When a form is submitted, the fields of the form are sent to Rails as parameters.

parameters can then be referenced inside the controller actions, typically to perform a particular task

params method is the object which represents the parameters (or fields) coming in from the form.

Active Record is smart enough to automatically map column names to model attributes,

Rails uses rake commands to run migrations, and it's possible to undo a migration after it's been applied to your database

every Rails model can be initialized with its respective attributes, which are automatically mapped to the respective database columns.

migration creates a method named change which will be called when you run this migration.

The action defined in this method is also reversible, which means Rails knows how to reverse the change made by this migration, in case you want to reverse it later

Migration filenames include a timestamp to ensure that they're processed in the order that they were created.

@post.save returns a boolean indicating whether the model was saved or not.

prevents an attacker from setting the model's attributes by manipulating the hash passed to the model.

If you want to link to an action in the same controller, you don't need to specify the :controller option, as Rails will use the current controller by default.

inherits from ActiveRecord::Base

Rails includes methods to help you validate the data that you send to models

Rails can validate a variety of conditions in a model, including the presence or uniqueness of columns, their format, and the existence of associated objects.

redirect_to will tell the browser to issue another request.

rendering is done within the same request as the form submission

Each request for a comment has to keep track of the post to which the comment is attached, thus the initial call to the find method of the Post model to get the post in question.

pluralize is a rails helper that takes a number and a string as its arguments. If the number is greater than one, the string will be automatically pluralized.

The render method is used so that the @post object is passed back to the new template when it is rendered.

it accepts a hash containing the attributes that you want to update.

field_with_errors. You can define a css rule to make them standout

belongs_to :post, which sets up an Active Record association

creates comments as a nested resource within posts

call destroy on Active Record objects when you want to delete them from the database.

Rails allows you to use the dependent option of an association to achieve this.

store all external data as UTF-8

you're better off ensuring that all external data is UTF-8

use UTF-8 as the internal storage of your database

Rails defaults to converting data from your database into UTF-8 at the boundary.

:patch

By default forms built with the form_for helper are sent via POST

The :method and :'data-confirm' options are used as HTML5 attributes so that when the link is clicked, Rails will first show a confirm dialog to the user, and then submit the link with method delete. This is done via the JavaScript file jquery_ujs which is automatically included into your application's layout (app/views/layouts/application.html.erb) when you generated the application.

Without this file, the confirmation dialog box wouldn't appear.

just defines the partial template we want to render

As the render method iterates over the @post.comments collection, it assigns each comment to

use the authentication system

require and permit

the method is often made private to make sure it can't be called outside its intended context.

objects carry both persistent data and behavior which operates on that data

Object-Relational Mapping, commonly referred to as its abbreviation ORM, is a technique that connects the rich objects of an application to tables in a relational database management system

Represent associations between these models

Validate models before they get persisted to the database

The idea is that if you configure your applications in the very same way most of the times then this should be the default way.

use the ActiveRecord::Base.table_name= method to specify the table name

Foreign keys - These fields should be named following the pattern singularized_table_name_id

Primary keys - By default, Active Record will use an integer column named id as the table's primary key

created_at

updated_at

(table_name)_count - Used to cache the number of belonging objects on associations.

Single Table Inheritance (STI)

Object Relational Mapping

class_name.yml

ActiveRecord::Base.primary_key=

CRUD is an acronym for the four verbs we use to operate on data: Create, Read, Update and Delete.

new method will return a new object

create will return the object and save it to the database.

Using the new method, an object can be instantiated without being saved

user.save will commit the record to the database

update_all class method

an Active Record object can be destroyed which removes it from the database

Validation is a very important issue to consider when persisting to database, so the methods create, save and update take it into account when running: they return false when validation fails and they didn't actually perform any operation on database.

Active Record callbacks allow you to attach code to certain events in the life-cycle of your models

Rails keeps track of which files have been committed to the database and provides rollback features

Convention over Configuration

allowing your schema and changes to be database independent.

each migration as being a new 'version' of the database

each migration modifies it to add or remove tables, columns, or entries

roll this migration back, it will remove the table

timestamps macro adds two columns, created_at and updated_at

On databases that support transactions with statements that change the schema, migrations are wrapped in a transaction

reversible

use up and down instead of change

Migrations are stored as files in the db/migrate directory, one for each migration class.

a UTC timestamp identifying

Rails uses this timestamp to determine which migration should be run and in what order

"AddXXXToYYY" or "RemoveXXXFromYYY"

use a Ruby DSL

column type as references

part_number:string:index

a migration to remove a column

"CreateXXX"

change_column_null

AddUserRefToProducts

:references

produce join tables if JoinTable is part of the name

CreateJoinTable

The model and scaffold generators will create migrations appropriate for adding a new model.

enclosed by curly braces and follow the field type

create_table

By default, create_table will create a primary key called id

add an index on the new column

when using MySQL, the default is ENGINE=InnoDB

create_join_table creates an HABTM (has and belongs to many) join table

create_join_table also accepts a block

change_table, used for changing existing tables

remove