Notes

Available options are (none of these exists by default):

* :limit - Requests a maximum column length. This is number of characters for :string and :text columns and number of bytes for :binary and :integer columns.
* :default - The column‘s default value. Use nil for NULL.
* :null - All...

if you'd like to check out your routes in the console, you can do something like: routes = ActionController::Routing::Routes # which will return a RouteSet puts routes.routes

which'll give you a nice output like: GET /messages/ {:action=>"index", :controller=...

Just add this code into a initializer file.

Atention: The code starts at the "module ActionView" and the last "end" has to be copied too.

module ActionView module Helpers module PrototypeHelper class JavaScriptGenerator #:nodoc: module GeneratorMethods def replace_h...

User = Struct.new(:name, :phone)

marc = User.new("Marc", "555-5555")

If restricting access to attributes you normally get code like

attr_accessible :foo,  

When using these nested attributes you end up with code like

attr_accessible :foo, :bar_attributes

Its very easy to leave of the _attributes suffix e.g

attr_accessible :foo, :bar

which will c...

If you want some object to be selected by default, be sure to use its id, not the whole object.

collection_select(:post, :author_id, Author.all, :id, :name_with_initial, {:selected => current_book.authors.map(&:id)}) #=> :selected => [1,2,3,4]

and not collection_select(:post, :author_id,...

As szeryf notes, this is a really expensive method, but another important remark is that the contents returned are a copy of the actual values.

model.attributes['name'] # => 'Joe'
model.attributes['name'] = 'Jim'
model.attributes['name'] # => 'Joe' still
model.name # => 'Joe'

This...

The antonym of empty? is Enumerable#any? method:

[].empty?  #=> true
[].any?    #=> false

[1].empty? #=> false
[1].any?   #=> true

Be cautious however, if your array might contain nil's or false's:

[false, nil].any? #=> false

I did not see this mentioned explicitly anywhere.

The method +validate+ is run always before a call to +validate_on_create+ or +validate_on_update+ is made.

Example:

class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base
def validate
  puts 'In validate'
end

def validate_on_create
  puts 'In val...

When you have a partial with optional local assigns, for instance:

<%= render :partial => 'articles/preview' %>
<%= render :partial => 'articles/preview', :locals => { :show_call_out => true } %>

And you don't want the partial to break when the local isn't assigned, you can reference it th...

====

class Aa class_inheritable_accessor :test end => [:test]

Aa.test = 10 => 10

Aa.test => 10

Bb = Class.new(Aa) => Bb

Bb.test => 10

Bb.test = 5 => 5

Bb.test => 5

Aa.test => 10

In addition to using:

@request.accept = "text/javascript" #=> request JS

as rubymaverick and nachocab suggested, you can also pass :format when calling your action, eg:

it "GET #most_viewed renders #most_viewed.js.rjs template if js requested" do get :most_viewed, :format => 'js'...

This isn't really deprecated, it's just relocated to ActiveRecord::AttributeMethods#read_attribute

It has been said that “it can be compared to, but isn’t the same thing as”:

class Bar
class << self
  attr_accessor :greeting
end
end

Which is true. However, they are “inherited” isn't exactly the case. Rather, cattr_accessor uses class variables.

The probl...

This method builds the a new hash every time it's called, so be cautious not to use it in loops etc.

Unlike the save method, you can't pass false to update_attributes to tell it to skip validation. Should you wish to do this (consider carefully if this is wise) update the attributes explicitly then call save and pass false:

@model_name.attributes = params[:model_name]
@model_name.save fa...

This may not be the behaviour that you want, and setting :discard_day => false doesn't change this. One way of getting around this is to hide the month field using CSS e.g.

#some_date_field_2i {
display:none;
}

If you use the :default option for the date_select, the correct default mo...

nm. just delete this entry

Class attribute assessors are neat if you want to set up modifiable constant-like varibles. This is how you'd normally set it up:

module MyPlugin
class Conf
  @@awesome_level = 'huge'
  cattr_accessor :awesome_level
end
end

Then you can call and modify it like this:

>>...

==== share_examples_for "a shape" do it "should have a color" do @shape.color.should == :black end end

describe "a circle" do before(:all) do @shape = Circle.new end it_should_behave_like "a shape" end