Ruby/Rails - Models Named with Two Words (Naming Convention Issues) - ruby-on-rails

This is really a question about naming conventions.
I have a model called PromotedEvents
The file is called promoted_events.rb
I created the table with:
create_table :promoted_events do |t|
Now I'm having problems creating anything, so I'm wondering if theres some problem using model with two words
im in the console and tried
a = PromotedEvents.new
a = Promoted_Event.new
a = promoted_event.new
and keep getting a nameerror : uninitialized constant error
Any ideas?

Your class should be singlular.
Name it PromotedEvent in the file promoted_event.rb
a = PromotedEvent.new

Model names are singular and camel case like so pe = PromotedEvent.new()
the file should be promoted_event.rb
Controllers are plural
PromotedEventsController
constants are ALL_CAPS
locals are separated_by_underscores_and_lowercase
table names are plural 'SELECT * FROM promoted_events`

If it helps, I always think of it like this:
The model name is singular because it represents a single, specific thing. So, PromotedEvent is a specific promoted event that has a name, date, etc.
The table name on the other hand is plural. This is because the table stores a collection of these singular items. So, promoted_events.
In rails, filenames are mostly a matter of convention since ruby has pretty lax rules in this regard, but generally it's class_name.rb. This page might help you get a better overview of what conventions are used where and what is specific to Ruby versus Rails.

If you are an extreme rails n00b like me, then you will want to remember to create a class definition for your newly created table and place it in app/models.
It would go like
class LargeCat < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :zoo
end

Related

Is it a bad idea to name a rails model "Post"

I want to create a model to manage blog posts and name it "post." Could this create a conflict with Rails built in methods?
The Rails Guide to Active Record Associations covers this issue:
3.2 Avoiding Name Collisions
You are not free to use just any name for your associations. Because
creating an association adds a method with that name to the model, 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. For instance, attributes or
connection are bad names for associations.
Figuring out whether your model name will cause a collision when it is used in an association is simple:
a = MyModel.new
a.respond_to?(:update) # => true
a.respond_to?(:post) # => false (assuming you haven't defined the association yet)
Edit:
I should probably point out that associations are not the only potential source of name collisions; in your case though it's pretty clear that update clashed with the :update method in ActiveRecord::Base.
Rails models are constants in the top-level namespace, so watch out for conflicts that arise from including library code.
Is it a bad idea to name a rails model “Post”
Yes. Your instincts are correct. Although not a reserved word, POST is a database action. Why not choose a name that has no opportunity to create confusion with the framework: Article, Comment...?

How do I specify column name and types while extending ActiveRecord::Base in Ruby on Rails?

Forgive my ignorance if I am missing something really trivial, I am very new to RoR.
Coming from Django background I remember models being like
class Post(models.Model):
title = models.CharField(max_length=100)
description = models.TextField()
both column name and field type are clearly specified.
Where as, when I write this rails command
> rails g model Post title:string description:text
all I get is
class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
attr_accessible :description, :title
end
Is there a way to write column names and field types while extending ActiveRecord::Base instead of having them only in the migration file?
Thanks, any help is appreciated
attr_accessible is deprecated and strong params replaces it functionality in the controller.
If you want to get a list of the schema information in your model file you can annotate it at the top of the file. This was best practices at some point, however I do not think it is used as much. I personally do not like this and just use the schema.
Post on best practices and annotating:
http://rails-bestpractices.com/posts/68-annotate-your-models
Gem to auto annotate:
https://github.com/ctran/annotate_models
The most wonderful thing about ActiveRecord is that you don't need to do any mapping, as all the fields are being automatically mapped using current schema. Of course default mapping can be overridden if needed, however this is a very rare case.
This approach is called "convention over configuration" and is present all over Rails - it assumes most common parameters for what you are trying to achieve so it saves a lot of unnecessary coding and mapping. It might feel weird at start, especially that you'll need to learn how to override those defaults, but I promise you are gonna love it when you get used to it. :)

Steps to simply Change the Name of my Model

So I think I jacked up my naming conventions (or rather realized I want to do it a different way). I initially created a "Persons" model (which created person.rb). I also created a persons_controller, but apparently rails looks for "People" so I changed the controller name to people_controller.rb (in the files...not in the command line).
I'm new to rails so I really just need to scrap all this and change my names because this setup (having to using Person, Persons, People) throughout the model/controller/views is just a bit confusing for a beginner. All I want to do is change the "Persons" or "People" to the word "Players". So if I were starting from scratch I'd do "rails generate model Player" in the command line, and "rails generate controller Players". But I have no idea how to go about changing my existing controller and model names to this...and I couldn't fully understand some of the older questions related to this topic.
Any help would be greatly appreciated here. Step by Step instruction like your talking to a 12 year old is also highly encouraged given my novice status.
thanks guys,
The basic conventions that will explain everything
About class name and file name
Class name must correspond to file path. In English, if you have a Thing model, it must be in models/thing.rb file ; if you have a ThingsController it must be in controllers/things_controller.rb
Class name with camel case (i.e SomeThing) must be declared in a file with underscore (i.e some_thing.rb). The file name is written in small letters and underscore is used to "separate" the words. Other example: ThisIsEasyToUnderstand will give this_is_easy_to_understand
About model name, table name and controller name
A model name is singular, a table name is plural and a controller is plural. For example a Thing model will have a things table, and will work with a ThingsController controller
Rails try at most to use correct English syntax, so a Person model will work with a people table and a PeopleController controller
You may have trouble when the model name is, in English, the same in its singular and plural form. Ex: aircraft, eyeglasses, scissors etc.. I won't details the solution to keep my answer clear, but know it can append and you can find solutions on those a bit everywhere on internet.
As an overview:
When you create a model, create a name in its singular form
When you create a controller create a name in its plural form
if you need to rename models or controller you already created you must rename in your code but also rename the file name
If you need to rename a model you will also need to rename its table, and you need a migration for that (search google for "rails migration rename table" )
Hope it help for your first steps in Rails
You can quickly scrap a model (and its associated files) by calling
rails destroy model [modelname]
Same with controllers, scaffolds, etc.
rails destroy scaffold [modelname]
rails destroy controller [controllername]
Of course, there's no undoing this after you've deleted them, so I'd create the new controllers/models/scaffolds first, migrate any relevant code, and then destroy the useless files.

Rails single table inheritance with lowercase type names

I'm working up an app that interfaces with a legacy database which has a type column used for single table inheritance. This database is still used by an existing PHP application so I have to work with what is there. I'm trying to set up some models for this and one of the key tables is set up with an STI scheme and a type column, however, all of the types in that column are entirely lowercase.
In my testing so far, rails works fine with the type column if I change the value to match the class name (for example, Claimant instead of claimant). However I don't want to go changing those values in the production database even though it would probably be ok, nor do I want to have to go in and modify the legacy app to save the names differently...
In order to fix this I have two questions...
1) Is there anyway I can configure the model to recognize that type = 'claimant' maps to class = 'Claimant'?
2) failing that, is there a way I can tell rails to not use STI on this table even though it has a type column?
I've done some googling and haven't come up with much yet...
I haven't tried this in an STI setting, but when using a legacy table I was able to use the method "set_table_name" on the ActiveRecord model.
class Claimant < ActiveRecord::Base
set_table_name 'claimant'
end
Or with a custom method:
def table_name
'claimant'
end
Apologies I haven't got an STI table handy to test this on, but thought it might help solve your problem.
In answer to the second part of your question, I believe you can disable Rails looking at the type column, by just specifying a non-existant column name.
class Claimant < ActiveRecord::Base
inheritance_column = :_type_column_disabled
end

Rails: define column names to model

I have an existing database(Postgresql). How can i create models from it? How can i pass column names for Rails? As if something like this:
Person:
Name :table_name_for_name_attribute
Surname :table_name_for_surname_attribute
PersonalCode :table_name_for_perconal_code_attribute
Unfortunately, my database is not following Rails convention, because not all tables are named in English. Any ideas how can i map it?
UPDATE reverse_scaffold script generates only model, but i need controller and view forms also.
You can define a table name not matching the model's using the table_name method.
class MyModel < ActiveRecord::Base
def self.table_name
'my_table_name'
end
end
Change the value of 'my_table_name' to your effective table name.
For generating controllers and views with automatic methods to create, update, delete and view database objects, you should create a scaffold. There's some pretty good documentation on the rails guides about that.
In your model, you'll need to tell ActiveRecord what the table name and primary key field column is named if they don't follow the conventions.
class MyLegacyTable < ActiveRecord::Base
self.table_name = "some_name"
self.primary_key = "some_name_primary_key_field"
end
Once you've done that, ActiveRecord knows the some_name_primary_key_field as id, which makes life much easier.
Rails doesn't need to know the column names it figures them out when it connects to the database.
As others have said you can specify a table name in the model.
As for generating controllers/views, you're pretty much own your own. script/generate scaffold is deprecated. It still works as far as creating things, but you need to pass all column names and times on the command line.
Instead have a look at the ActiveScaffold Plugin, it has a similar end result. But is much more robust and easier to adapt to model changes.

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