Rails Cookbook

Table of contents

1. A Note Regarding Supplemental Files
2. Foreword
3. Preface
   1. Who This Book Is For
   2. Other Resources
   3. Conventions Used in This Book
   4. Using Code Examples
   5. Safari® Enabled
   6. Comments and Questions
   7. Acknowledgments
4. 1. Getting Started
   1. Introduction
   2. Joining the Rails Community
   3. Finding Documentation
   4. Installing MySQL
   5. Installing PostgreSQL
   6. Installing Rails
   7. Fixing Ruby and Installing Rails on OS X 10.4 Tiger
   8. Running Rails in OS X with Locomotive
   9. Running Rails in Windows with Instant Rails
   10. Updating Rails with RubyGems
   11. Getting Your Rails Project into Subversion
5. 2. Rails Development
   1. Introduction
   2. Creating a Rails Project
   3. Jump-Starting Development with Scaffolding
   4. Speeding Up Rails Development with Mongrel
   5. Enhancing Windows Development with Cygwin
   6. Understanding Pluralization Patterns in Rails
   7. Developing Rails in OS X with TextMate
   8. Cross-Platform Developing with RadRails
   9. Installing and Running Edge Rails
   10. Setting Up Passwordless Authentication with SSH
   11. Generating RDoc for Your Rails Application
   12. Creating Full-Featured CRUD Applications with Streamlined
6. 3. Active Record
   1. Introduction
   2. Setting Up a Relational Database to Use with Rails
   3. Programmatically Defining Database Schema
   4. Developing Your Database with Migrations
   5. Modeling a Database with Active Record
   6. Inspecting Model Relationships from the Rails Console
   7. Accessing Your Data via Active Record
   8. Retrieving Records with find
   9. Iterating Over an Active Record Result Set
   10. Retrieving Data Efficiently with Eager Loading
   11. Updating an Active Record Object
   12. Enforcing Data Integrity with Active Record Validations
   13. Executing Custom Queries with find_by_sql
   14. Protecting Against Race Conditions with Transactions
   15. Adding Sort Capabilities to a Model with acts_as_list
   16. Performing a Task Whenever a Model Object Is Created
   17. Modeling a Threaded Forum with acts_as_nested_set
   18. Creating a Directory of Nested Topics with acts_as_tree
   19. Avoiding Race Conditions with Optimistic Locking
   20. Handling Tables with Legacy Naming Conventions
   21. Automating Record Timestamping
   22. Factoring Out Common Relationships with Polymorphic Associations
   23. Mixing Join Models and Polymorphism for Flexible Data Modeling
7. 4. Action Controller
   1. Introduction
   2. Accessing Form Data from a Controller
   3. Changing an Application’s Default Page
   4. Clarifying Your Code with Named Routes
   5. Configuring Customized Routing Behavior
   6. Displaying Alert Messages with Flash
   7. Extending the Life of a Flash Message
   8. Following Actions with Redirects
   9. Generating URLs Dynamically
   10. Inspecting Requests with Filters
   11. Logging with Filters
   12. Rendering Actions
   13. Restricting Access to Controller Methods
   14. Sending Files or Data Streams to the Browser
   15. Storing Session Information in a Database
   16. Tracking Information with Sessions
   17. Using Filters for Authentication
8. 5. Action View
   1. Introduction
   2. Simplifying Templates with View Helpers
   3. Displaying Large Datasets with Pagination
   4. Creating a Sticky Select List
   5. Editing Many-to-Many Relationships with Multiselect Lists
   6. Factoring Out Common Display Code with Layouts
   7. Defining a Default Application Layout
   8. Generating XML with Builder Templates
   9. Generating RSS Feeds from Active Record Data
   10. Reusing Page Elements with Partials
   11. Processing Dynamically Created Input Fields
   12. Customizing the Behavior of Standard Helpers
   13. Creating a Web Form with Form Helpers
   14. Formatting Dates, Times, and Currencies
   15. Personalizing User Profiles with Gravatars
   16. Avoiding Harmful Code in Views with Liquid Templates
   17. Globalizing Your Rails Application
9. 6. RESTful Development
   1. Introduction
   2. Creating Nested Resources
   3. Supporting Alternative Data Formats by MIME Type
   4. Modeling Relationships RESTfully with Join Models
   5. Moving Beyond Simple CRUD with RESTful Resources
   6. Consuming Complex Nested REST Resources
   7. Developing Your Rails Applications RESTfully
10. 7. Rails Application Testing
    1. Introduction
    2. Centralizing the Creation of Objects Common to Test Cases
    3. Creating Fixtures for Many-to-Many Associations
    4. Importing Test Data with CSV Fixtures
    5. Including Dynamic Data in Fixtures with ERb
    6. Initializing a Test Database
    7. Interactively Testing Controllers from the Rails Console
    8. Interpreting the Output of Test::Unit
    9. Loading Test Data with YAML Fixtures
    10. Monitoring Test Coverage with rake stats
    11. Running Tests with Rake
    12. Speeding Up Tests with Transactional Fixtures
    13. Testing Across Controllers with Integration Tests
    14. Testing Controllers with Functional Tests
    15. Examining the Contents of Cookie
    16. Testing Custom and Named Routes
    17. Testing HTTP Requests with Response-Related Assertions
    18. Testing a Model with Unit Tests
    19. Unit Testing Model Validations
    20. Verifying DOM Structure with Tag-Related Assertions
    21. Writing Custom Assertions
    22. Testing File Upload
    23. Modifying the Default Behavior of a Class for Testing by Using Mocks
    24. Improving Feedback by Running Tests Continuously
    25. Analyzing Code Coverage with Rcov
11. 8. JavaScript and Ajax
    1. Introduction
    2. Adding DOM Elements to a Page
    3. Creating a Custom Report with Drag and Drop
    4. Dynamically Adding Items to a Select List
    5. Monitoring the Content Length of a Textarea
    6. Updating Page Elements with RJS Templates
    7. Inserting JavaScript into Templates
    8. Letting a User Reorder a List
    9. Autocompleting a Text Field
    10. Searching for and Highlighting Text Dynamically
    11. Enhancing the User Interface with Visual Effects
    12. Implementing a Live Search
    13. Editing Fields in Place
    14. Creating an Ajax Progress Indicator
12. 9. Action Mailer
    1. Introduction
    2. Configuring Rails to Send Email
    3. Creating a Custom Mailer Class with the Mailer Generator
    4. Formatting Email Messages Using Templates
    5. Attaching Files to Email Messages
    6. Sending Email from a Rails Application
    7. Receiving Email with Action Mailer
13. 10. Debugging Rails Applications
    1. Introduction
    2. Exploring Rails from the Console
    3. Fixing Bugs at the Source with Ruby -cw
    4. Debugging Your Application in Real Time with the breakpointer
    5. Logging with the Built-in Rails Logger Class
    6. Writing Debugging Information to a File
    7. Emailing Application Exceptions
    8. Outputting Environment Information in Views
    9. Displaying Object Contents with Exceptions
    10. Filtering Development Logs in Real Time
    11. Debugging HTTP Communication with Firefox Extensions
    12. Debugging Your JavaScript in Real Time with the JavaScript Shell
    13. Debugging Your Code Interactively with ruby-debug
14. 11. Security
    1. Introduction
    2. Hardening Your Systems with Strong Passwords
    3. Protecting Queries from SQL Injection
    4. Guarding Against Cross-Site Scripting Attacks
    5. Restricting Access to Public Methods or Actions
    6. Securing Your Server by Closing Unnecessary Ports
15. 12. Performance
    1. Introduction
    2. Measuring Web Server Performance with Httperf
    3. Benchmarking Portions of Your Application Code
    4. Improving Performance by Caching Static Pages
    5. Expiring Cached Pages
    6. Mixing Static and Dynamic Content with Fragment Caching
    7. Filtering Cached Pages with Action Caching
    8. Speeding Up Data Access Times with memcached
    9. Increasing Performance by Caching Post-Processed Content
16. 13. Hosting and Deployment
    1. Introduction
    2. Hosting Rails Using Apache 1.3 and mod_fastcgi
    3. Managing Multiple Mongrel Processes with mongrel_cluster
    4. Hosting Rails with Apache 2.2, mod_proxy_balancer, and Mongrel
    5. Deploying Rails with Pound in Front of Mongrel, Lighttpd, and Apache
    6. Customizing Pound’s Logging with cronolog
    7. Configuring Pound with SSL Support
    8. Simple Load Balancing with Pen
    9. Deploying Your Rails Project with Capistrano
    10. Deploying Your Application to Multiple Environments with Capistrano
    11. Deploying with Capistrano When You Can’t Access Subversion
    12. Deploying with Capistrano and mongrel_cluster
    13. Disabling Your Web Site During Maintenance
    14. Writing Custom Capistrano Tasks
    15. Cleaning Up Residual Session Records
17. 14. Extending Rails with Plug-ins
    1. Introduction
    2. Finding Third-Party Plug-ins
    3. Installing Plug-ins
    4. Manipulating Record Versions with acts_as_versioned
    5. Building Authentication with acts_as_authenticated
    6. Simplifying Folksonomy with the acts_as_taggable
    7. Extending Active Record with acts_as
    8. Adding View Helpers to Rails as Plug-ins
    9. Uploading Files with file_column
    10. Uploading Files with acts_as_attachment
    11. Disabling Records Instead of Deleting Them with acts_as_paranoid
    12. Adding More Elaborate Authentication Using the Login Engine
18. 15. Graphics
    1. Introduction
    2. Installing RMagick for Image Processing
    3. Uploading Images to a Database
    4. Serving Images Directly from a Database
    5. Creating Resized Thumbnails with RMagick
    6. Generating PDF Documents
    7. Visually Displaying Data with Gruff
    8. Creating Small, Informative Graphs with Sparklines
19. A. Migrating to Rails 1.2
    1. Action Controller
    2. Active Record
    3. Action View
20. Index
21. About the Author
22. Colophon
23. Copyright