Learning Rails 5: Rails from the Outside In

by J. Mark Locklear, Eric J Gruber (With), Barnabas Bulpett (With)

Overview

If you’re a web developer or designer ready to learn Ruby on Rails, this hands-on guide is the ideal way to get started. Rather than toss you into the middle of the framework’s Model-View-Controller architecture, as many books do, Learning Rails 5 begins with the foundations of the Web you already know.

You’ll learn how to create something visible with Rails’ view layer before diving into the more difficult inner layers: the database models and controller code. All you need to begin your Rails journey is HTML experience. Each chapter includes exercises and review questions to test your understanding as you go.

• Present content by building an application with a basic view and a simple controller
• Build forms and process their results, progressing from simple to more complex
• Use Rails scaffolding and REST to build effective applications quickly
• Connect forms to models and create code that maps directly to database structures
• Build applications that combine data from multiple tables
• Use migrations to track changes to your database over time
• Add common elements such as sessions, cookies, and authentication

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491926192
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	09/04/2016
Pages:	450
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Mark Locklear is a web developer at the eXtension Initiative and has 20 years of IT experience including network administration, quality assurance, and software development. He is an Adjunct Instructor at Asheville Buncombe Technical Community College and is passionate about education and teaching students software development.

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Preface xiii

1 Starting Up Ruby on Rails 1

If You Run Windows, You're Lucky 2

Getting Started at the Command Line 3

Starting Up Rails 9

Test Your Knowledge 11

Quiz 11

Answers 11

2 Rails on the Web 13

Creating Your Own View 13

What Are All Those Folders? 17

Adding Some Data 18

How Hello World Works 20

Adding Logic to the View 22

Test Your Knowledge 24

Quiz 24

Answers 24

3 Adding Web Style 27

I Want My CSS! 27

Specifying Stylesheets 33

Creating a Layout for a Controller 34

Choosing a Layout from a Controller 36

Sharing Template Data with the Layout 38

Setting a Default Page 39

Test Your Knowledge 40

Quiz 40

Answers 40

4 Managing Data Flow: Controllers and Models 43

Getting Started, Greeting Guests 43

Application Flow 48

Keeping Track: A Simple Guestbook 49

Connecting to a Database Through a Model 50

Connecting the Controller to the Model 53

Finding Data with ActiveRecord 57

Test Your Knowledge 61

Quiz 61

Answers 62

5 Accelerating Development with Scaffolding and REST 63

A First Look at Scaffolding 63

REST and Controller Best Practices 68

Websites and Web Applications 68

Toward a Cleaner Approach 70

Examining a RESTful Controller 71

Index: An Overview of Data 76

Show: Just One Row of Data and the Before Filter 77

New: A Blank Set of Data Fields 78

Edit: Fiana Me That Data, Please 78

Create: Save Something New 79

Put This Updated Record In 81

Destroy It 82

Escaping the REST Prison 83

Test Your Knowledge 84

Quiz 84

Answers 84

6 Presenting Models with Forms 87

More Than a Name on a Form 87

Generating HTML Forms with Scaffolding 89

Form as a Wrapper 94

Creating Text Fields and Text Areas 96

Labels 98

Creating Checkboxes 99

Creating Radio Buttons 100

Creating Selection Lists 103

Dates and Times 105

Creating Helper Methods 107

Test Your Knowledge 110

Quiz 110

Answers 110

7 Strengthening Models with Validation 113

Without Validation 113

The Original Model 116

The Power of Declarative Validation 117

Managing Secrets 120

Customizing the Message 120

Limiting Choices 122

Testing Format with Regular Expressions 122

Seen It All Before 123

Numbers Only 123

A Place on the Calendar 125

Testing for Presence 125

Beyond Simple Declarations 126

Test It Only If 126

Do It Yourself 127

Test Your Knowledge 128

Quiz 128

Answer 129

8 Improving Forms 131

Adding a Picture by Uploading a File 131

File Upload Forms 132

Model and Migration Changes 133

Results 138

Standardizing Your Look with Form Builders 143

Supporting Your Own Field Types 143

Adding Automation 145

Integrating Form Builders and Styles 148

Test Your Knowledge 151

Quiz 151

Answers 152

9 Developing Model Relationships 153

Connecting Awards to Students 154

Establishing the Relationship 155

Supporting the Relationship 156

Connecting Students to Awards 160

Removing Awards When Students Disappear 160

Counting Awards for Students 160

Nesting Awards in Students 162

Changing the Routing 163

Changing the Controller 164

Changing the Award Views 166

Connecting the Student Views 171

Is Nesting Worth It? 172

Many-to-Many: Connecting Students to Courses 173

Creating Tables 173

Connecting the Models 174

Adding to the Controllers 176

Adding Routing 178

Supporting the Relationship Through Views 178

What's Missing? 187

Test Your Knowledge 188

Quiz 188

Answers 188

10 Managing Databases with Migrations 191

What Migrations Offer You 192

Migration Basics 193

Migration Files 193

Running Migrations Forward and Backward 195

Inside Migrations 197

Working with Tables 197

Data Types 198

Working with Columns 201

Indexes 202

Other Opportunities 204

Test Your Knowledge 206

Quiz 206

Answers 207

11 Debugging 209

Creating Your Own Debugging Messages 209

Raising Exceptions 212

Logging 213

Working with Rails from the Console 214

Debug and Debugger 219

Test Your Knowledge 223

Quiz 223

Answers 223

12 Testing 225

Test Mode 225

Testing the Students App 226

Setting Up a Test Database with Fixtures 227

Model Testing 231

Controller Testing 238

Calling Controllers 241

Testing Responses 241

Dealing with Nested Resources 243

Integration Testing 245

Beyond the Basics 248

Test Your Knowledge 249

Quiz 249

Answers 250

13 Sessions and Cookies 251

Getting Into and Out of Cookies 251

Storing Data Between Sessions 257

Test Your Knowledge 262

Quiz 262

Answers 262

14 Users and Authentication 263

The Sign-up Process 264

Wiring Authentication to Your Application 271

Classifying Users 273

More Options 283

Test Your Knowledge 284

Quiz 284

Answers 284

15 Routing 285

Creating Routes to Interpret URIs 286

Specifying Routes 286

Globbing 288

Regular Expressions and Routing 289

A Domain Default with root 289

Mapping Resources 290

Nesting Resources 291

Route Order and Priority 292

Checking the Map 292

Generating URIs from Views and Controllers 293

Pointing url_for in the Right Direction 293

Adding Options 294

Infinite Possibilities 295

Test Your Knowledge 296

Quiz 296

Answers 296

16 From CSS to Sass 297

Getting Started 297

Sassy Style 298

Variables 298

Mixins 300

Nesting 302

Making Everything Work Together 303

Becoming Sassier 306

Test Your Knowledge 307

Quiz 307

Answers 307

17 Managing Assets and Bundles 309

The Junk Drawer 309

Sprockets 310

Dissecting the Pipeline 310

Putting It All Together 311

Bundler 315

Test Your Knowledge 318

Quiz 318

Answers 319

18 Sending Code to the Browser: JavaScript and CoffeeScript 321

Sending JavaScript to the Browser 322

Simplifying with CoffeeScript 325

Have Some Sugar with Your CoffeeScript 325

Converting to CoffeeScript 327

Test Your Knowledge 329

Quiz 329

Answers 329

19 Mail in Rails 331

Sending Mail Messages 331

Previewing Mail 337

Receiving Mail 338

Setup 338

Processing Messages 339

Test Your Knowledge 342

Quiz 342

Answers 342

20 Pushing Further into Rails 343

Changing to Production Mode 343

Deploying Is Much More Than Programming 344

Joining the Rails Ecosystem 347

Keep Up with Rails 347

Ruby 348

Working with and Around Rails 348

Keep Exploring 349

A An Incredibly Brief Introduction to Ruby 351

B An Incredibly Brief Introduction to Relational Databases 373

C An Incredibly Brief Guide to Regular Expressions 383

D Glossary 393

Index 413