This is a simple lab. All you have to do is get the tests passing. There are a bunch of tests, but it should take you less than 5 minutes to finish this lab. Try to figure out the one command you need to run to make the entire suite pass. Read the Controller and Views specs for help on figuring out this one command. Try running rspec. You'll most likely get an error. You'll need to also remember to migrate your test database, but rspec will clue you in. Browse the code, read, try to take it all in.
The model name will be Post and the attributes will be title and description. The title attribute should be of type string and description should be of type text.
All the files that you currently see in your project directory, with the exception of a few spec files, were generated via the rails new command. Consequently, it built a fully fledged web app ready out of the box. This is an example of why the Rails framework is called an opinionated framework that favors convention over configuration. With Sinatra, we can build an app from scratch, by just adding require 'sinatra' in a file and calling rackup. Rails is much heavier than that. With an app ready out of the box through generators like rails new and rails generate scaffold, we're able to build larger scale applications very quickly.
Scaffolding is a powerful tool that Rails provides. Here's the syntax:
> rails generate scaffold <capitalized singular model name> <optional first attribute name>:<first attribute type> <optional second attribute name>:<second attribute type> <optional third attribute name>:<third attribute type> <etc.>
For the purposes of all Rails labs at Flatiron, you'll be adding the flag --no-test-framework to every command that includes "generate" or "g" for short. Therefore, the Flatiron version is:
> rails generate scaffold <capitalized singular model name> <optional first attribute name>:<first attribute type> <optional second attribute name>:<second attribute type> <optional third attribute name>:<third attribute type> <etc.> --no-test-framework
For instance, say you were making an app to help New Yorkers find apartments. Your apartments should have an address (string), a price (float), a description (text), and an image url (string). You want to make the following things:
- an apartment model
- an apartments table with four columns (address, price, description, image_url)
- an apartments controller
- routes for apartments (show, new, index, update, edit, delete, create)
- views (show, new, edit, index)
To make all these in one command, you would run:
> rails generate scaffold Apartment address:string price:float description:text image_url:string
The above command would also build out tests for your views, controller, etc. If you were scaffolding Apartments for a Flatiron lab, you would add that --no-test-framework flag, so the command would be:
> rails generate scaffold Apartment address:string price:float description:text image_url:string --no-test-framework
This will build everything except for the tests out for you. Not only will it build out the controller, migration, model, and views, it will also create a helper, some JSON builders, a stylesheet, and a CoffeeScript file. It will also add resources :apartments to the config/routes.rb file.
create db/migrate/20150117151933_create_apartments.rb
create app/models/apartment.rb
invoke test_unit
invoke resource_route
route resources :apartments
invoke scaffold_controller
create app/controllers/apartments_controller.rb
invoke erb
create app/views/apartments
create app/views/apartments/index.html.erb
create app/views/apartments/edit.html.erb
create app/views/apartments/show.html.erb
create app/views/apartments/new.html.erb
create app/views/apartments/_form.html.erb
invoke helper
create app/helpers/apartments_helper.rb
invoke jbuilder
create app/views/apartments/index.json.jbuilder
create app/views/apartments/show.json.jbuilder
invoke assets
invoke coffee
create app/assets/javascripts/apartments.js.coffee
invoke scss
create app/assets/stylesheets/apartments.css.scss
invoke scss
Before anything, note that when you generate your scaffold, be sure to include this option, so that it skips tests (which we already have): --no-test-framework
Browse through the Rails Guides below:
- Rails Guides - Getting Started with Rails
- Rails Guides - Layouts and Rendering
- Rails Guides - Action Controller Overview
- Rails Guides - Rails Routing from the Outside In
View Rails Blog on Learn.co and start learning to code for free.