Ruby on Rails Cheatsheet

Architecture

Create a new application

Install the Rails gem if you haven't done so before

$ gem install rails

Generate a new Rails app w/ Postgres support

$ rails new my_app --database=postgresql

Initialize the database

$ rake db:create

Start the Rails server

$ rails s

Routes

Create a route that maps a URL to the controller action

# config/routes.rb
get 'welcome' => 'pages#home'

Shorthand for connecting a route to a controller/action

# config/routes.rb
get 'photos/show'

# The above is the same as: 
get 'photos/show', :to 'photos#show'
get 'photos/show' => 'photos#show'

Automagically create all the routes for a RESTful resource

# config/routes.rb
resources :photos

HTTP Verb	Path	Controller#Action	Used for
GET	/photos	photos#index	display a list of all photos
GET	/photos_new	photos#new	return an HTML form for creating a new photo
POST	/photos	photos#create	create a new photo
GET	/photos/:id	photos#show	display a specific photo
GET	/photos/:id/edit	photos#edit	return an HTML form for editing a photo
PATCH/PUT	/photos/:id	photos#update	update a specific photo
DELETE	/photos/:id	photos#destroy	delete a specific photo

Create resources for only certain actions

# config/routes.rb
resources :photos, :only => [:index]

# On the flip side, you can create a resource with exceptions 
resources :photos, :except => [:new, :create, :edit, :update, :show, :destroy]

Create a route to a static view, without an action in the controller

# config/routes.rb
# If there's a file called 'about.html.erb' in 'app/views/photos', this file will be 
#   automatically rendered when you call localhost:3000/photos/about
get 'photos/about', to: 'photos#about'

Reference: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html

Controllers

Generate a new controller

Note: Name controllers in Pascal case and pluralize

$ rails g controller Photos

Generate a new controller with default actions, routes and views

$ rails g controller Photos index show

Reference: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/action_controller_overview.html

Models

Generate a model and create a migration for the table

Note: Name models in Pascal case and singular

$ rails g model Photo

Generate a model and create a migration with table columns

$ rails g model Photo path:string caption:text

The migration automatically created for the above command:

class CreatePhotos < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    create_table :photos do |t|
      t.string :path
      t.text :caption
 
      t.timestamps null: false
    end
  end
end

Reference: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/active_model_basics.html

Migrations

Migration Data Types

:boolean
:date
:datetime
:decimal
:float
:integer
:primary_key
:references
:string
:text
:time
:timestamp

When the name of the migration follows the format AddXXXToYYY followed by a list of columns, it will add those columns to the existing table

$ rails g migration AddDateTakenToPhotos date_taken:datetime

The above creates the following migration:

class AddDateTakenToPhotos < ActiveRecord::Migration[5.0]
  def change
    add_column :photos, :date_taken, :datetime
  end
end

You can also add a new column to a table with an index

$ rails g migration AddDateTakenToPhotos date_taken:datetime:index

The above command generates the following migration:

class AddDateTakenToPhotos < ActiveRecord::Migration[5.0]
  def change
    add_column :photos, :date_taken, :datetime
    add_index :photos, :date_taken
  end
end

The opposite goes for migration names following the format: RemoveXXXFromYYY

$ rails g migration RemoveDateTakenFromPhotos date_taken:datetime

The above generates the following migration:

class RemoveDateTakenFromPhotos < ActiveRecord::Migration[5.0]
  def change
    remove_column :photos, :date_taken, :datetime
  end
end

Scaffolding

Scaffolding is great for prototypes but don't rely too heavily on it: http://stackoverflow.com/a/25140503

$ rails g scaffold Photo path:string caption:text
$ rake db:migrate

View all the routes in an application

$ rake routes

Seed the database with sample data from db/seeds.rb

$ rake db:seed

Run any pending migrations

$ rake db:migrate

Rollback the last migration performed

NOTE: Be VERY careful with this command in production, it's destructive and you could potentially lose data. Make sure you absolutely understand what will happen when you run it

$ rake db:rollback

Path Helpers

Creating a path helper for a route

# Creating a path helper for a route
get '/photos/:id', to: 'photos#show', as: 'photo'

# app/controllers/photos_controller.rb
@photo = Photo.find(17)

# View for the action
<%= link_to 'Photo Record', photo_path(@photo) %>

Path helpers are automatically created when specifying a resource in config/routes.rb

# config/routes.rb
resources :photos

HTTP Verb	Path	Controller#Action	Named Helper
GET	/photos	photos#index	photos_path
GET	/photos/new	photos#new	new_photo_path
POST	/photos	photos#create	photos_path
GET	/photos/:id	photos#show	photo_path(:id)
GET	/photos/:id/edit	photos#edit	edit_photo_path(:id)
PATCH/PUT	/photos/:id	photos#update	photo_path(:id)
DELETE	/photos/:id	photos#destroy	photo_path(:id)

Asset Pipeline

Access images in the app/assets/images directory like this:

<%= image_tag "rails.png" %>

Within views, link to JavaScript and CSS assets

<%= stylesheet_link_tag "application" %> 
<%= javascript_include_tag "application" %>

<!-- Filenames are fingerprinted for cache busting -->
<link href="/assets/application-4dd5b109ee3439da54f5bdfd78a80473.css" media="screen"
rel="stylesheet" />
<script src="/assets/application-908e25f4bf641868d8683022a5b62f54.js"></script>

Reference: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/asset_pipeline.html

Form Helpers

Bind a form to a model for creating/updating a resource

Use this method if you're using strong params to protect against mass assignment

# app/controllers/photos_controller.rb
def new
  @photo = Photo.new
end

# ERB view
<%= form_for @photo, url: {action: "create"}, html: {class: "nifty_form"} do |f| %>
  <%= f.text_field :path %>
  <%= f.text_area :caption, size: "60x12" %>
  <%= f.submit "Create" %>
<% end %>

<!-- HTML output -->
<form accept-charset="UTF-8" action="/photos/create" method="post" class="nifty_form">
  <input id="photos_path" name="photo[path]" type="text" />
  <textarea id="photos_caption" name="photo[caption]" cols="60" rows="12"></textarea>
  <input name="commit" type="submit" value="Create" />
</form>

Create a form with a custom action and method

<%= form_tag("/search", method: "get") do %>
  <%= label_tag(:q, "Search for:") %>
  <%= text_field_tag(:q) %>
  <%= submit_tag("Search") %>
<% end %>

<form accept-charset="UTF-8" action="/search" method="get">
  <input name="utf8" type="hidden" value="✓" />
  <label for="q">Search for:</label>
  <input id="q" name="q" type="text" />
  <input name="commit" type="submit" value="Search" />
</form>

Reference: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/form_helpers.html

Ruby on Rails Cheatsheet