Typical Situation

The missing Ruby on Rails ActionController REST API mixin.

A Ruby mixin (module) providing the seven standard resource actions & responses for an ActiveRecord :model_type & :collection.

Installation

Requires (tested in) Rails 3.2 & Ruby 1.9.

Add to your Gemfile:

gem 'typical_situation', github: 'mars/typical_situation'

Usage

Define three methods

class MockApplePiesController < ApplicationController
  include TypicalSituation

  # Symbolized, underscored version of the model (class) to use as the resource.
  def model_type
    :mock_apple_pie
  end
  
  # The collection of model instances.
  def collection
    current_user.mock_apple_pies
  end
  
  # Find a model instance by ID. 
  def find_in_collection(id)
    collection.find_by_id(id)
  end
end

Get a fully functional REST API

The seven standard resourceful actions:

index
show
new
create
edit
update
delete

For the content types:

HTML
JSON

With response handling for:

the collection
a single instance
not found
validation errors (using ActiveModel::Errors format)
changed
deleted/gone

Customize by overriding highly composable methods

TypicalSituation is composed of a library of common functionality, which can all be overridden in individual controllers. Express what is different & special about each controller, instead of repeating boilerplate.

The library is split into modules:

identity - required definitions of the model & how to find it
actions - high-level controller actions
operations - loading, changing, & persisting the model
responses - HTTP responses & redirects

Legalese

This project uses MIT-LICENSE.