In Symfony i just have to create models with ORM Designer and export it to symfony as a schema.yml and then use a symfony command to create tables, models and forms.
I wonder if there is an equivalent to the RoR so that you dont have to create models manually by hand?
It saves a lot of time using GUI for this kind of tasks and it is less error-prone.
thanks
it should be possible to support RoR in ORM Designer. The trouble is that we know only PHP and wouldn't be able to beta test RoR support and create unit tests. But if there is anybody willing to help, please let us know at support at orm-designer dot com and RoR support can be released within a few months.
You can use the model generator with script/generate model to create a model class and migration. A great reference on migrations is cheat migrations which is available via the cheat command.
You could use the scaffold generator as per Getting Started with Rails, however scaffolds are "considered harmful" by many (including myself). I prefer to generate an initial migration with script/generate migration, tweak it to suit and then create/update my model, routes, controllers and views manually.
If you are still starting out, you will probably find it helpful to run through Getting Started with Rails at least once.
Related
I'm a PHP developer, and any framework I've used, scaffold is recommended just for tests.
So, my question is: in Rails too?
It's recommend use scaffold in production (for just a CRUD, example: a blog)
Because, on thing is different: in some PHP frameworks, the scaffold views is processed/created in each requisition, but in Rails (I think), the files are already created.
Scaffolding is kind of standard structure of Rails app. As ruby is a deadly flexible language, I think Rails implements this feature just to guide new comers to make things work in a relatively uniform way.
Anyway, it follows the best practice of RESTful pattern. Although we won't always use "rails g scaffold xxx...", the main file structure of the program is just like the scaffold.
PS: for some situations like building the platform for admin, scaffold is really a good tool to use. Because the standard table, the CRUD actions are just admin's daily work. Scaffold saves days on this kind of stuff.
You need to be aware that if you generate a Rails scaffold for a model, it'll generate all the code required to create, read, update and delete (CRUD) stuff in your database. You probably don't want that kind of priviledge given over to all users in a production environment (particularly update and delete) so that's why it's dangerous to blindly upload scaffold code to production.
If you do create a scaffold, you should go through it and remove all the parts you don't want to be exposed in a production environment. For a simple blog, you probably only want the index and show functions and remove the ability to create, update and destroy entries (or at least protect them with some authentication solution so that only you can do that).
I would say that the code generated by a scaffold is fine to use in production, it's more that you need to be careful what priviledges you give to public users.
If nothing else, scaffolds are very good for learning about how database driven applications work.
Depending on the situation, I do scaffold my models when I generate them and then remove stuff I don't need and tailor it to my requirements (including adding tests). I usually find that quicker than writing all the code from scratch (especially when it generates the database migration file, test files and adds the model resource to the routes file at the same time).
Most developers do not use the scaffolding.
It's not the worst thing in the world, but it will give you a generic, out-of-the-box setup. I personally think it's best to avoid when you're just starting out because then you won't learn the basics very well. And it's best to avoid when you're more skilled because it probably won't give you what you want anyway.
I'm new in the world of Ruby on Rails. I have some problems to solve before start to build a store-like web application.
I'm following instructions written in the book "Agile Web Development with Rails" so I decided to use sqlite too...
...but I have already represented the scenario via ER Diagrams and now I don't know how to bring it on rails.
In the early chapters of the book, it uses the scaffold command to create the table "Product". But this command creates model, view, controller and test for every table I want to represent.
Is it the right way to proceed? Or is there a way to build all my tables before I start to create mvc I need?
Try the Guides to Ruby On Rails:
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html
It's generally easier to understand (in my opinion) than the Agile book.
The easiest way to create your tables is by using Rails migrations.
The easiest way to create migrations with the related models, views, and controllers is:
rails generate scaffold Product
That command will print what it's doing. Take a look in those files.
If you have many tables, yes the typical way is to generate many scaffolds, for example:
rails generate scaffold User
rails generate scaffold Product
rails generate scaffold Company
rails generate scaffold Invoice
...
In your comment you ask about a type_of_product table. For tables like these, yes it's fine to skip the scaffold (for example because you don't need a controller) and instead just generate a migration:
rails generate migration TypeOfProduct
Heads up that Rails does odd things with the word "type". When I did a table like that, I found it easier to start with the main word then use the word "kind" like this:
rails generate migration ProductKind
Short answer: YES, this is the right way.
Longer answer: Usually you want to design a model, then design the next one, so usually this is the right way. If you create a table without a model, there is no value in pure existence of a table.
If you want to create only tables, without a model, you may create migration. Just use ./script/rails generate migration CreateSomeTable.
In any case you may just ignore the created files which you do not need right now. Just let them stay where they are, and focus on all the tables (migrations) if you wish so.
Scaffolding gives you a great starting point for working with a resource, such as a user, post, article, etc. It generates models, views and controllers and then you can focus on modifying it to fit your needs.
Your entity relationship diagram gives you a great roadmap for building your system. You shouldn't be worrying about big banging 20 tables into the app at once. You should, instead, build them out one and a time (through scaffolding or the other rails generators for models and migrations) working on them until they are right, then building out the other tables and relationships one at a time.
Work small and you'll be incredibly productive. Work large and you'll spend a lot of wasted time trying to figure out where you went wrong in a single giant operation.
I am presently designing a database schema for use in a Rails 3.1 application.
At the moment, I am using MySQL Workbench to design the schema visually, and then manually translating this to Rails migrations & models.
Can anyone indicate if there are any solutions that will allow a schema to be designed visually and translated automatically (i.e. via script) to Rails?
Thanks!
First off, the "database-first" approach definitely isn't really the preferred way to work with Rails... but if you really want to...
If you generate the the tables from your schema you can configure the Rails app's config/database.yml file to connect to your database, then call rake db:schema:dump which generates the db/schema.rb file from the database. Then you can create a migration and copy the code from db/schema.rb into the change (or self.up) method.
Note that this does not automatically create model classes - you'll have to create these yourself, remembering to --skip migration in the rails generate model, and possibly needing to make liberal use of the set_table_name (to map the model class to the right table name), alias_attribute (to map model attributes to the right columns), and perhaps set_primary_key.
There were some more complete approaches to this sort of thing for older versions of Rails (Magic Model Generator and reverse_scaffold are two that I've found), but I don't know of any that have been upgraded to work with Rails 3.
SQL Editor is a Mac application that allows you to visually design a DB schema and then export it as something you can easily import as a schema in Rails.
You will still have to create the models yourself.
For rails existing applications or the new application, you can use this for db design
https://dbdiagram.io/
I use railshelper.com which helps me in a simplistic manner to generate quickly some common rails cli commands !
I think Mogwai ERD will help you out, there you can design your ERD and convert it in to a DB schema.
And I think there is no software for design Rails schema, it's just that you make your schema adhere to Rails conventions. But of course Rails can be configured to almost any schema.
I created, using the scaffolding, a model and controller files.
Later I discovered it would be a good idea to create the tables in the DB first...
My question, How can I role back the generated files and regenerate them now, that I have the tables in the DB?
I just started learning RoR, so right now I am not interested in best practices, just learning the tool box this FW (RoR) comes with.
And, do you have a recommendation for a good tutorial? I do know to use google, it is just that search engines don't know, yet (working on that), how to grade tutorials.
Edit: For my last question I found Learning Ruby on Rails
try
rails destroy scaffold XXXXX
one thing that I find puzzling though is that you said "Later I discovered it would be a good idea to create the tables in the DB first..."
Well, rails creates a migration file for you when you run the generator in the first place, and this file will create your DB tables and fields when you run it using rake db:migrate
PS - here's a few good tutorials for you:
rails tutorial ebook
rails demo site
rails 4 zombies
You can rollback controller.
rails destroy controller [controller]
You can delete all the files Rails created -- just look at the printout on your command line, see what files rails created, and delete them.
I don't know why you would want to create all the tables in the db, but that's fine, I guess. I prefer to let rails do it. Either way, Rails won't mind. You can always add / change fields using Rails, even if you created the tables outside Rails.
Ryan Bates' Railscasts are excellent tutorials.
My current project is in Rails. Coming from a Symfony (PHP) and Django (Python) background, they both have excellent admin generators. Seems like this is missing in Rails.
For those who aren't familiar with Symfony or Django, they both allow you to specify some metadata around your models to automatically (dynamically) generate an admin interface to do the common CRUD operations. You can create an entire Intranet with only a few commands or lines of code. They have a good appearance and are extensible enough for 99% of your admin needs.
I've looked for something similar for Rails, but all of the projects either have no activity or they died long ago. Is there anything to generate an intranet/admin site for a rails app other than scaffolding?
Active Admin (http://activeadmin.info/) was released in May of 2011, and looks like it's going to become the best Rails 3 option.
rails_admin appears to be the latest-n-greatest free project as of January 2011.
...best of all, there has been a lot of activity in the repository.
Scaffolding is the normal way to create an admin backend BUT there is a project called ActiveScaffold which may solve your problem.
Here is a roundup of a few options, including more than just ActiveScaffold.
ActiveScaffold is available for Rails 2.3.x :)
Just for someonse's info who have found this question one year later like me :)
ActiveScaffold is a good solution, but if you want a more configurable and powerful tool, I think Typus is a great solution:
http://github.com/fesplugas/typus
You have mainly two:
ActiveScaffolding: the most popular but be careful with rails 2.1
Streamlined
ActiveScaffold is by far and away the most configurable/easiest to integrate/most automagic scaffolding around at the moment.
It has built in ajax support, near seamless db introspection and it even plays nicely with legacy Oracle databases (which can be a real pain in Rails).
Try it: http://activescaffold.com/
Have a look at Casein (http://www.caseincms.com/), might be what you're looking for.
Having also tried typus, caseincms and ActiveScaffold over the weekend, I can't rave enough about admin_data.
It is
super-quick to install (Rails 3 is the gem, Rails 2.3 is a plugin branch,
no digging through trees on github),
unintrusive (all code is in the vendor/admin_data folder or the gem where it belongs),
requires no set-up and optional configuration is one block in one file in your app,
correctly (!) gets all model information from your model definitions (primary_key, foreign_key, relationships etc.),
including multiple databases, SQL Server connections via activerecord-sqlserver-adapter, and even composite primary keys, as everything is abstracted on top of ActiveRecord, if you model works, admin_data will work,
works great with legacy data for the above reasons,
uses your existing authentication solution which is called in the most wonderful DRYness in your configuration file.
It maybe less flexible or pretty than other solutions, but this plugin does many thingks right for quick admin panel setup.
The most common way to create a CRUD interface is to use Scaffold.
./script/generate scaffold_resource MyModel property:type property2:type2
This command would generate a CRUD interface for the model named MyModel (singular) with two properties. Properties is what's called columns in DB lingo. So you could have name:string age:integer active:boolean etc.
I can suggest you active_admin that is best
Active Admin main site