Foreword by David Heinemeier Hansson      xxxiii

Foreword by Yehuda Katz      xxxv

Chapter 1: Rails Environments and Configuration      1

1.1 Bundler   2

1.2 Startup and Application Settings   8

1.3 Development Mode   15

1.4 Test Mode   19

1.5 Production Mode   20

1.6 Logging   23

1.7 Conclusion   29

Chapter 2: Routing      31

2.1 The Two Purposes of Routing   32

2.2 The routes.rb File   33

2.3 Route Globbing   45

2.4 Named Routes   46

2.5 Scoping Routing Rules   50

2.6 Listing Routes   53

2.7 Conclusion   54

Chapter 3: REST, Resources, and Rails      55

3.1   REST in a Rather Small Nutshell   55

3.2   Resources and Representations   56

3.3   REST in Rails   57

3.4   Routing and CRUD   58

3.5   The Standard RESTful Controller Actions   61

3.6   Singular Resource Routes   64

3.7   Nested Resources 65

3.8   RESTful Route Customizations   69

3.9   Controller-Only Resources   74

3.10 Different Representations of Resources   76

3.11 The RESTful Rails Action Set   78

3.12 Conclusion   83

Chapter 4: Working with Controllers      85

4.1   Rack   86

4.2   Action Dispatch: Where It All Begins   88

4.3   Render unto View   92

4.4   Additional Layout Options   101

4.5   Redirecting   101

4.6   Controller/View Communication   104

4.7   Filters   105

4.8   Verification   111

4.9   Streaming   112

4.10 Conclusion   117

Chapter 5: Working with Active Record         119

5.1   The Basics    120

5.2   Macro-Style Methods    121

5.3   Defining Attributes    123

5.4   CRUD: Creating, Reading, Updating, Deleting    127

5.5   Database Locking   142

5.6   Where Clauses    146

5.7   Connections to Multiple Databases in Different Models   153

5.8   Using the Database Connection Directly   154

5.9   Other Configuration Options   158

5.10 Conclusion   159

Chapter 6: Active Record Migrations        161

6.1 Creating Migrations   161

6.2 Data Migration   173

6.3 schema.rb   174

6.4 Database Seeding   175

6.5 Database-Related Rake Tasks   176

6.6 Conclusion   179

Chapter 7: Active Record Associations        181

7.1   The Association Hierarchy   181

7.2   One-to-Many Relationships   183

7.3   The belongs—to Association   191

7.4   The has—many Association   200

7.5   Many-to-Many Relationships   209

7.6   One-to-One Relationships   223

7.7   Working with Unsaved Objects and Associations   226

7.8   Association Extensions   227

7.9   The AssociationProxy Class   229

7.10 Conclusion   230

Chapter 8: Validations        231

8.1   Finding Errors   231

8.2   The Simple Declarative Validations   232

8.3   Common Validation Options   242

8.4   Conditional Validation   243

8.5   Short-form Validation   245

8.6   Custom Validation Techniques   246

8.7   Skipping Validations   249

8.8   Working with the Errors Hash   249

8.9   Testing Validations with Shoulda   250

8.10 Conclusion   250

Chapter 9: Advanced Active Record        251

9.1   Scopes   251

9.2   Callbacks   256

9.3   Calculation Methods   265

9.4   Observers   268

9.5   Single-Table Inheritance (STI)   269

9.6   Abstract Base Model Classes   276

9.7   Polymorphic has many Relationships   277

9.8   Foreign-key Constraints   281

9.9   Using Value Objects   281

9.10 Modules for Reusing Common Behavior   285

9.11 Modifying Active Record Classes at Runtime   289

9.12 Conclusion   292

Chapter 10: Action View        293

10.1 Layouts and Templates   294

10.2 Partials   302

10.3 Conclusion   308

Chapter 11: All About Helpers        309

11.1   ActiveModelHelper   309

11.2   AssetTagHelper   316

11.3   AtomFeedHelper   324

11.4   CacheHelper   326

11.5   CaptureHelper   326

11.6   DateHelper   328

11.7   DebugHelper   333

11.8   FormHelper   333

11.9   FormOptionsHelper   350

11.10 FormTagHelper   355

11.11 JavaScriptHelper   358

11.12 NumberHelper   359

11.13 PrototypeHelper   361

11.14 RawOutputHelper   361

11.15 RecordIdentificationHelper   362

11.16 RecordTagHelper   363

11.17 SanitizeHelper   364

11.18 TagHelper   366

11.19 TextHelper   367

11.20 TranslationHelper and the I18n API   372

11.21 UrlHelper   391

11.22 Writing Your Own View Helpers   398

11.23 Wrapping and Generalizing Partials   401

11.24 Conclusion   407

Chapter 12: Ajax on Rails        409

12.1 Unobtrusive JavaScript   411

12.3 Ajax and JSON   419

12.3.1 Ajax link to   419

12.4 Ajax and HTML   421

12.5 Ajax and JavaScript   423

12.6 Conclusion   424

Chapter 13: Session Management        425

13.1 What to Store in the Session   426

13.2 Session Options   427

13.3 Storage Mechanisms   427

13.4 Cookies   431

13.5 Conclusion   432

Chapter 14: Authentication         433

14.1 Authlogic   434

14.2 Devise   439

14.3 Conclusion   443

Chapter 15: XML and Active Resource         445

15.1 The to—xml Method   445

15.2 The XML Builder   454

15.3 Parsing XML   456

15.4 Active Resource   457

15.5 Active Resource Authentication   465

15.6 Conclusion   469

Chapter 16: Action Mailer         471

16.1 Setup   471

16.2 Mailer Models   472

16.3 Receiving Emails   477

16.4 Server Configuration   479

16.5 Testing Email Content   479

16.6 Conclusion   481

Chapter 17: Caching and Performance        483

17.1 View Caching   483

17.2 General Caching   495

17.3 Control Web Caching   497

17.4 ETags   498

17.5 Conclusion   500

Chapter 18: RSpec        501

18.1   Introduction   501

18.2   Basic Syntax and API   504

18.3   Predicate Matchers   513

18.4   Custom Expectation Matchers   514

18.5   Shared Behaviors   517

18.6   RSpec’s Mocks and Stubs   517

18.7   Running Specs   520

18.8   RSpec Rails Gem   521

18.9   RSpec Tools   531

18.10 Conclusion   533

Chapter 19: Extending Rails with Plugins         535

19.1 The Plugin System   536

19.2 Writing Your Own Plugins   537

19.3 Conclusion   547

Chapter 20: Background Processing 549

20.1 Delayed Job   550

20.2 Resque   553

20.3 Rails Runner   557

20.4 Conclusion   559

Appendix A: Active Model API Reference   561

A.1   Attribute Methods   561

A.2   Callbacks   563

A.3   Conversion   563

A.4   Dirty   564

A.5   Errors   565

A.6   Lint::Tests   567

A.7   MassAssignmentSecurity   567

A.8   Name   568

A.9   Naming   569

A.10 Observer   569

A.11 Observing   570

A.12 Serialization   571

A.13 Serializers::JSON   572

A.14 Serializers::Xml   572

A.15 Translation   573

A.16 Validations 574

A.17 Validator   578

Appendix B: Active Support API Reference        579

B.1   Array   579

B.2   ActiveSupport::BacktraceCleaner   585

B.3   ActiveSupport::Base64   586

B.4   ActiveSupport::BasicObject   586

B.5   ActiveSupport::Benchmarkable   587

B.6   BigDecimal   588

B.7   ActiveSupport::BufferedLogger   588

B.8   ActiveSupport::Cache::Store   590

B.9   ActiveSupport::Callbacks   595

B.10 Class   598

B.11 ActiveSupport::Concern   602

B.12 ActiveSupport::Configurable   603

B.13 Date   603

B.14 DateTime   609

B.15 ActiveSupport::Dependencies   613

B.16 ActiveSupport::Deprecation   617

B.17 ActiveSupport::Duration   617

B.18 Enumerable   619

B.19 ERB::Util   620

B.20 FalseClass   621

B.21 File   621

B.22 Float   622

B.23 Hash   622

B.24 HashWithIndifferentAccess   627

B.25 ActiveSupport::Inflector::Inflections   628

B.26 Integer   632

B.27 ActiveSupport::JSON   633

B.28 Kernel   634

B.29 Logger   635

B.30 ActiveSupport::MessageEncryptor   636

B.31 ActiveSupport::MessageVerifier   637

B.32 Module   638

B.33 ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars   645

B.34 NilClass   648

B.35 ActiveSupport::Notifications   649

B.36 Numeric   650

B.37 Object   653

B.38 ActiveSupport::OrderedHash   657

B.39 ActiveSupport::OrderedOptions   657

B.40 ActiveSupport::Railtie   658

B.41 Range   658

B.42 Regexp   660

B.43 ActiveSupport::Rescuable   660

B.44 ActiveSupport::SecureRandom   661

B.45 String   662

B.46 ActiveSupport::StringInquirer   671

B.47 Symbol   671

B.48 ActiveSupport::Testing::Assertions   671

B.49 Time   673

B.50 ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone   680

B.51 ActiveSupport::TimeZone   681

B.52 ActiveSupport::TrueClass   684

B.53 ActiveSupport::XmlMini   684

Ruby  [PTG: AW PROFESSIONAL]   (Computer Science)
Web Programming and Design: Numerous Mark-up / Scripting Language  [PTG: AW PROFESSIONAL]   (Computer Science)

Praise for the Previous Edition

This encyclopedic book is not only a definitive Rails reference, but an indispensable guide to Software-as-a-Service coding techniques for serious craftspersons. I keep a copy in the lab, a copy at home, and a copy on each of my three e-book readers, and it’s on the short list of essential resources for my undergraduate software engineering course.

—Armando Fox, adjunct associate professor, University of California, Berkeley

Everyone interested in Rails, at some point, has to follow The Rails Way.

—Fabio Cevasco, senior technical writer, Siemens AG, and blogger at H3RALD.com

I can positively say that it’s the single best Rails book ever published to date. By a long shot.

—Antonio Cangiano, software engineer and technical evangelist at IBM

This book is a great crash course in Ruby on Rails! It doesn’t just document the features of Rails, it filters everything through the lens of an experienced Rails developer—so you come our a pro on the other side.

—Dirk Elmendorf, co-founder of Rackspace, and Rails developer since 2005

The key to The Rails Way is in the title. It literally covers the “way” to do almost everything with Rails. Writing a truly exhaustive reference to the most popular Web application framework used by thousands of developers is no mean feat. A thankful community of developers that has struggled to rely on scant documentation will embrace The Rails Way with open arms. A tour de force!

—Peter Cooper, editor, Ruby Inside

In the past year, dozens of Rails books have been rushed to publication. A handful are good. Most regurgitate rudimentary information easily found on the Web. Only this book provides both the broad and deep technicalities of Rails. Nascent and expert developers, I recommend you follow The Rails Way.

—Martin Streicher, chief technology officer, McLatchy Interactive; former editor-in-chief of Linux Magazine

Hal Fulton’s The RubyWay has always been by my side as a reference while programming Ruby. Many times I had wished there was a book that had the same depth and attention to detail, only focused on the Rails framework. That book is now here and hasn’t left my desk for the past month.

—Nate Klaiber, Ruby programmer

As noted in my contribution to the Afterword: “What Is the Rails Way (To You)?,” I knew soon after becoming involved with Rails that I had found something great. Now, with Obie’s book, I have been able to step into Ruby on Rails development coming from .NET and be productive right away. The applications I have created I believe to be a much better quality due to the techniques I learned using Obie’s knowledge.

—Robert Bazinet, InfoQ.com, .NET and Ruby community editor, and founding member of the Hartford, CT, Ruby Brigade

Extremely well written; it’s a resource that every Rails programmer should have. Yes, it’s that good.

—Reuven Lerner, Linux Journal columnist

Obie Fernandez has been hacking computers since he got his first Commodore VIC-20 in the eighties, and found himself in the right place and time as a programmer on some of the first Java enterprise projects of the mid-nineties. Obie has been evangelizing Ruby on Rails online via blog posts and publications since early 2005. He has traveled around the world relentlessly promoting Rails at large industry conferences. As CEO and Founder of Hashrocket, Obie specializes in orchestrating the creation of large-scale, web-based applications, both for startups and mission-critical enterprise projects. He still gets his hands dirty with code on at least a weekly basis and posts regularly on various topics to his popular technology blog.

The Ruby on Rails Application Development Bible

Ruby on Rails strips complexity from the development process, enabling professional developers to focus on what matters most: delivering business value via clean and maintainable code. This book is the only comprehensive, authoritative guide to delivering production-quality code with Rails 3. Pioneering Rails expert Obie Fernandez and a team of leading experts illuminate the entire Rails 3 API, along with the idioms, design approaches, and libraries that make developing applications with Rails so powerful. Drawing on their unsurpassed experience and track record, they address the real challenges development teams face, showing how to use Rails 3 to maximize your productivity.

Using plentiful detailed code examples, Obie systematically covers Rails 3 key capabilities and subsystems, making this book a reference that you will refer to again and again. He presents advanced Rails programming techniques that have been proven effective in day-to-day usage on dozens of production Rails systems and offers important insights into behavior-driven development and production considerations such as scalability. Dive deep into the Rails 3 codebase together, discovering why Rails is designed the way it is— and how to make it do what you want it to do.

This book will help you

• Learn what’s new in Rails 3
• Increase your productivity as a web application developer
• Realize the overall joy in programming with Rails
• Leverage Rails’ powerful capabilities for building REST-compliant APIs
• Drive implementation and protect long-term maintainability using RSpec
• Design and manipulate your domain layer using Active Record
• Understand and program complex program flows using Action Controller
• Master sophisticated URL routing concepts
• Use Ajax techniques via Rails 3 support for unobtrusive JavaScript
• Incorporate logins and authentication into your application
• Extend Rails with the best third-party plug-ins and write your own
• Integrate email services into your applications with ActionMailer
• Choose the right Rails production configuration
• Streamline deployment with Capistrano
• Improve application responsiveness with background processing
• Create your own non-Active Record domain classes using Active Model
• Master Rails’ utility classes and extensions in Active Support

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