Friend List on Rails

The ruby code is inside the friend-list-on-rails directory.

The docker file & scripts are a docker-compose wrapper so I have a clean, portable, stable environment to work with.

A quick crash course to get me clued into Ruby on Rails before digging into it more. Based on the video "Learn Ruby on Rails - Full Course" by freeCodeCamp.org.

Installation

Requirements

Based on https://docs.docker.com/samples/rails/. Requires:

• docker (20.10.7)
• docker-compose (1.28.0)
• bash (4.4.2)

Setup

1. Run ./run.sh dev to start container in development mode.
   • If you wish to rebuild the images, run ./run.sh dev --build
2. Run ./dev.sh to start interactive session.
   • su developer to become your HOST user (essential for permissions)
   • entrypoint.sh serves Ruby by default.
3. Access at http://localhost:3000/.
4. To stop CTRL + C or docker-compose down.

You may need to run sudo chown -R $USER:$USER * to fix permissions if you create files within the container as root.

Recommended VSCode Plugins

• Ruby - https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=rebornix.Ruby
• Ruby Solargraph - https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=castwide.solargraph

Notes

1. rails s - Starts rails server.
2. rails routes - Display all the routes.
3. erb - Embeded Ruby.
4. rails g controller home index - Generators creates controller from template. Can be found at http://localhost:3000/home/index.
5. Start partials with _ such as _header.html.erb then you can call <%= render 'home/header' %>
6. Links work as: <%= link_to 'About Us', home_about_path, class:"nav-link" %> where the paths are like your routes/controller; home/about -> home_about then _path. You can get this info from rails routes

   $ rails routes | grep home_about
                             home_about GET    /home/about(.:format)                                                                             home#about
   

7. rails g scaffold friend first_name:string last_name:string email:string phone:string twitter:string
   • Needs to be singular or will be forced singular.
   • Review: https://guides.rubyonrails.org/v3.2/migrations.html#supported-types
8. rails db:migrate - Runs the migrations.

   == 20210627175159 CreateFriends: migrating ====================================
   -- create_table(:friends)
     -> 0.0055s
   == 20210627175159 CreateFriends: migrated (0.0057s) ===========================
   

9. resources :friends - Handles a bunch of sub-routes.
10. https://rubygems.org/ - Normally:
    1. Copy paste into Gemfile (gem 'devise', '~> 4.8')
    2. bundle install (Need to be root in container)
    3. https://rubygems.org/gems/devise has more steps
    4. rails g devise:install

       Running via Spring preloader in process 369
             create  config/initializers/devise.rb
             create  config/locales/devise.en.yml
       ===============================================================================
       
       Depending on your application's configuration some manual setup may be required:
       
         1. Ensure you have defined default url options in your environments files. Here
           is an example of default_url_options appropriate for a development environment
           in config/environments/development.rb:
       
             config.action_mailer.default_url_options = { host: 'localhost', port: 3000 }
       
           In production, :host should be set to the actual host of your application.
       
           * Required for all applications. *
       
         2. Ensure you have defined root_url to *something* in your config/routes.rb.
           For example:
       
             root to: "home#index"
       
           * Not required for API-only Applications *
       
         3. Ensure you have flash messages in app/views/layouts/application.html.erb.
           For example:
       
             <p class="notice"><%= notice %></p>
             <p class="alert"><%= alert %></p>
       
           * Not required for API-only Applications *
       
         4. You can copy Devise views (for customization) to your app by running:
       
             rails g devise:views
       
           * Not required *
       
       ===============================================================================
       

    5. rails g devise:views
    6. rails g devise user + rails db:migrate
11. https://guides.rubyonrails.org/association_basics.html
    • Associations are fairly similar to PHP Akelos Framework framework, which makes sense since Akelos was intended to be a Rail port to PHP.
    1. rails g migration add_user_id_to_friends user_id:integer:index && rails db:migrate
    2. Much like Akelos, you can assign foreign key values in the controller like: @friend.user_id = current_user.id
    3. Alternatively: @friend = current_user.friends.build(friend_params)
    4. friend_params defines the params for the controller.
    5. before_action is very similar to Akelos.
12. <%= @friend.inspect => or indeed any object like <%= object.inspect => lets you see the values.
13. If you want to only generate the scaffold when the model exists:
    • rails g scaffold_controller friend_example
14. Next?

Future notes

Since I'm developing in Docker, if I decide to do this again:

To bootstrap without Gemfile, you need to disable some steps in entrypoint/Dockerfile/docker-compose.

Then run rails new friend-list-on-rails.

When setting up the database for the first time need to run rake db:create.