Question about lib directory.
What are good practices in using the lib directory?
When should it be used over app/models or app/helpers?
And somewhat related how do you get Rails 3 to include files from the lib directory?
Thanks
One use of the lib directory (how I use it most often) is to share code between models to stay DRY. For example, if you are defining a tag_tokens attribute on many different models for use with a tokenizer input, you could put that in "tag_accessor.rb" or something, place it in /lib', and then include it with include TagAccessor. The ruby file might look like:
module TagAccessor
def tag_tokens
tags.map(&:name).join(',')
end
def tag_tokens=(names)
self.tag_ids = names.split(",").uniq
end
end
(This is an example from one of my apps, which is why it's so specific). Then to load the /lib folder in Rails 3, place this in your application.rb:
config.autoload_paths += %W(#{config.root}/lib)
Related
I have a standard app that contains of sub-apps that we will slowly migrate into separate gems. The main problem is that each sub-app basically has an almost identical schema and very similar business logic that sometimes is really pretty much the same.
Currently, as a first step, we created a subfolder in lib/client with a structure like a typical rails app.
As an example, a concern for a ClientA looks like this/
module Client
module ClientA
module Concerns
module MyConcern
...
end
end
end
This all works fine and gets autoloaded by Zeitwerk.
However, when I want to create an initializer in a Rails way, I don't want to wrap it inside modules and make a class around it and this is where I am getting lib/clients/ClientA/config/initializers/custom_initializer.rb to define constant Clients::ClientA::Config::Initializers::CustomInitializer, but didn't (Zeitwerk::NameError)
This folder gets autoloaded like this
config.autoload_paths += %W(#{config.root}/lib)
config.autoload_paths += %W(#{config.root}/lib/client/**/*)
Is there a way how to
Blacklist the folder from being autoloaded by Zeitwerk?
Load it using require or in any other way without wrapping it in modules?
You can ignore parts of the project in zeitwerk using Loader#ignore. You can access rails zeitwerk autoloader via Rails.autoloaders.main.
So you should be able to add something like this to your application.rb:
Rails.autoloaders.main.ignore(Rails.root.join('lib/clients/*/config/initializers/*.rb'))
You'll then have to require them manually, maybe in an initializer in the main app directory. You could create a config/initializers/clients.rb with something like:
Dir[Rails.root.join('lib/clients/*/config/initializers/*.rb')].each do |filename|
require filename
end
So have a rails 5 project and would like to load a directory like this
/app
/services
/user
foo.rb
as the constant ::Services::User::Foo
Does anyone have experience in getting rails autoload paths to load the constants in this manner?
foo.rb
module Services
module User
class Foo
end
end
end
SOLUTION
Add this to your application.rb file
config.autoload_paths << Rails.root.join('app')
See discussions here on autoloading
https://github.com/rails/rails/issues/14382#issuecomment-37763348
https://github.com/trailblazer/trailblazer/issues/89#issuecomment-149367035
Auto loading
You need to define Services::User::Foo inside app/services/services/user/foo.rb
If you don't want this weird subfolder duplication, you could also move services to app/models/services or lib/services.
You could also leave foo.rb in app/services/user/foo.rb, but it should define User::Foo.
Eager loading
If you don't need any magic with namespaces and class names, it is pretty straightforward :
Dir[Rails.root.join('app/services/**/*.rb')].each{|rb| require rb}
This will eagerly load any Ruby script inside app/services and any subfolder.
I use the following line in an initializer to autoload code in my /lib directory during development:
config/initializers/custom.rb:
RELOAD_LIBS = Dir[Rails.root + 'lib/**/*.rb'] if Rails.env.development?
(from Rails 3 Quicktip: Auto reload lib folders in development mode)
It works great, but it's too inefficient to use in production- Instead of loading libs on each request, I just want to load them on start up. The same blog has another article describing how to do this:
config/application.rb:
# Custom directories with classes and modules you want to be autoloadable.
config.autoload_paths += %W(#{config.root}/lib)
config.autoload_paths += Dir["#{config.root}/lib/**/"]
However, when I switch to that, even in development, I get NoMethodErrors when trying to use the lib functions.
Example of one of my lib files:
lib/extensions.rb:
Time.class_eval do
def self.milli_stamp
Time.now.strftime('%Y%m%d%H%M%S%L').to_i
end
end
Calling Time.milli_stamp will throw NoMethodError
I realize others have answered similar questions on SO but they all seem to deal with naming conventions and other issues that I didn't to have to worry about before- My lib classes already worked for per-request loading, I just want to change it to per-startup loading. What's the right way to do this?
I think this may solve your problem:
in config/application.rb:
config.autoload_paths << Rails.root.join('lib')
and keep the right naming convention in lib.
in lib/foo.rb:
class Foo
end
in lib/foo/bar.rb:
class Foo::Bar
end
if you really wanna do some monkey patches in file like lib/extensions.rb, you may manually require it:
in config/initializers/require.rb:
require "#{Rails.root}/lib/extensions"
P.S.
Rails 3 Autoload Modules/Classes by Bill Harding.
And to understand what does Rails exactly do about auto-loading?
read Rails autoloading — how it works, and when it doesn't by Simon Coffey.
Though this does not directly answer the question, but I think it is a good alternative to avoid the question altogether.
To avoid all the autoload_paths or eager_load_paths hassle, create a "lib" or a "misc" directory under "app" directory. Place codes as you would normally do in there, and Rails will load files just like how it will load (and reload) model files.
This might help someone like me that finds this answer when searching for solutions to how Rails handles the class loading ... I found that I had to define a module whose name matched my filename appropriately, rather than just defining a class:
In file lib/development_mail_interceptor.rb (Yes, I'm using code from a Railscast :))
module DevelopmentMailInterceptor
class DevelopmentMailInterceptor
def self.delivering_email(message)
message.subject = "intercepted for: #{message.to} #{message.subject}"
message.to = "myemail#mydomain.org"
end
end
end
works, but it doesn't load if I hadn't put the class inside a module.
Use config.to_prepare to load you monkey patches/extensions for every request in development mode.
config.to_prepare do |action_dispatcher|
# More importantly, will run upon every request in development, but only once (during boot-up) in production and test.
Rails.logger.info "\n--- Loading extensions for #{self.class} "
Dir.glob("#{Rails.root}/lib/extensions/**/*.rb").sort.each do |entry|
Rails.logger.info "Loading extension(s): #{entry}"
require_dependency "#{entry}"
end
Rails.logger.info "--- Loaded extensions for #{self.class}\n"
end
Would it be possible to have something like this?
app/models/
app/models/users/user.rb
app/models/users/education.rb
The goal is to organize the /app/models folder better, but without having to namespace the models.
An unanswered question for Rails 3 is here:
Rails 3.2.9 and models in subfolders.
Specifying table_name with namespaces seems to work (see Rails 4 model subfolder), but I want to do this without a namespace.
By default, Rails doesn't add subfolders of the models directory to the autoload path. Which is why it can only find namespaced models -- the namespace illuminates the subdirectory to look in.
To add all subfolders of app/models to the autoload path, add the following to config/application.rb:
config.autoload_paths += Dir[Rails.root.join("app", "models", "{*/}")]
Or, if you have a more complex app/models directory, the above method of globing together all subfolders of app/models may not work properly. In which case, you can get around this by being a little more explicit and only adding the subfolders that you specify:
config.autoload_paths += Rails.root.join("app", "models", "<my_subfolder_name1>")
config.autoload_paths += Rails.root.join("app", "models", "<my_subfolder_name2>")
UPDATE for Rails 4.1+
As of Rails 4.1, the app generator doesn't include config.autoload_paths by default. So, note that the above really does belong in config/application.rb.
UPDATE
Fixed autoload path examples in the above code to use {*/} instead of {**}. Be sure to read muichkine's comment for details on this.
I am working in a Rails project in which i have used the below names for model/controller and class files
/app/models/friends/friend.rb
/app/controllers/friends/friends_controller.rb
/lib/classes/friends/friend.rb
I tried to add all the models, controllers and class files in autoload path in application.rb.
But i am facing issues since the class names are same.
How should i handle this? and organize files in such a way that files are organized with name spaces.
Thanks,
Balan
A much better approach would be to use Rails Engines & divide your app in isolated modules.
rails plugin new friends --full --mountable --dummy-path spec/dummy
the above command will generate a full mountable engine with isolated namespace, meaning that all the controllers and models from this engine will be isolated within the namespace of the engine. For instance, the Post model later will be called Friends::Post, and not simply Post. to mount this app inside your main rails app, you need do two things:
Add entry to Gemfile
gem 'friends', path: "/path/to/friends/engine"
And then add route to config/routes.rb
mount Friends::Engine, at: "/friends"
For more information on this approch, checkout:
Rails Guide to Engines
Taming Rails Apps with Engines
RailsCast #277 Mountable Engines
The class names are same but path's are different, and you don't need to add classes to autoload except /lib/classes/friends/friend.rb
Did you tried the following way:
# app/models/friends/friend.rb
class Friends::Friends
#...
end
# Friends::Friends.new
# app/controllers/friends/friends_controller.rb
class Friends::FriendsController < ApplicationController
#...
end
# lib/classes/friends/friend.rb
module Classes
module Friends
class Friends
#...
end
end
end
# Classes::Friends::Friends.new
To add lib files to autoload add following to your applicaion.rb
config.autoload_paths += %W(#{config.root}/lib)