Rails Cookbook

Foreword; Preface; Who This Book Is For; Other Resources; Conventions Used in This Book; Using Code Examples; Safari?? Enabled; Comments and Questions; Acknowledgments; Chapter 1: Getting Started; 1.1 Introduction; 1.2 Joining the Rails Community; 1.3 Finding Documentation; 1.4 Installing MySQL; 1.5 Installing PostgreSQL; 1.6 Installing Rails; 1.7 Fixing Ruby and Installing Rails on OS X 10.4 Tiger; 1.8 Running Rails in OS X with Locomotive; 1.9 Running Rails in Windows with Instant Rails; 1.10 Updating Rails with RubyGems; 1.11 Getting Your Rails Project into Subversion; Chapter 2: Rails Development; 2.1 Introduction; 2.2 Creating a Rails Project; 2.3 Jump-Starting Development with Scaffolding; 2.4 Speeding Up Rails Development with Mongrel; 2.5 Enhancing Windows Development with Cygwin; 2.6 Understanding Pluralization Patterns in Rails; 2.7 Developing Rails in OS X with TextMate; 2.8 Cross-Platform Developing with RadRails; 2.9 Installing and Running Edge Rails; 2.10 Setting Up Passwordless Authentication with SSH; 2.11 Generating RDoc for Your Rails Application; 2.12 Creating Full-Featured CRUD Applications with Streamlined; Chapter 3: Active Record; 3.1 Introduction; 3.2 Setting Up a Relational Database to Use with Rails; 3.3 Programmatically Defining Database Schema; 3.4 Developing Your Database with Migrations; 3.5 Modeling a Database with Active Record; 3.6 Inspecting Model Relationships from the Rails Console; 3.7 Accessing Your Data via Active Record; 3.8 Retrieving Records with find; 3.9 Iterating Over an Active Record Result Set; 3.10 Retrieving Data Efficiently with Eager Loading; 3.11 Updating an Active Record Object; 3.12 Enforcing Data Integrity with Active Record Validations; 3.13 Executing Custom Queries with find_by_sql; 3.14 Protecting Against Race Conditions with Transactions; 3.15 Adding Sort Capabilities to a Model with acts_as_list; 3.16 Performing a Task Whenever a Model Object Is Created; 3.17 Modeling a Threaded Forum with acts_as_nested_set; 3.18 Creating a Directory of Nested Topics with acts_as_tree; 3.19 Avoiding Race Conditions with Optimistic Locking; 3.20 Handling Tables with Legacy Naming Conventions; 3.21 Automating Record Timestamping; 3.22 Factoring Out Common Relationships with Polymorphic Associations; 3.23 Mixing Join Models and Polymorphism for Flexible Data Modeling; Chapter 4: Action Controller; 4.1 Introduction; 4.2 Accessing Form Data from a Controller; 4.3 Changing an Application???s Default Page; 4.4 Clarifying Your Code with Named Routes; 4.5 Configuring Customized Routing Behavior; 4.6 Displaying Alert Messages with Flash; 4.7 Extending the Life of a Flash Message; 4.8 Following Actions with Redirects; 4.9 Generating URLs Dynamically; 4.10 Inspecting Requests with Filters; 4.11 Logging with Filters; 4.12 Rendering Actions; 4.13 Restricting Access to Controller Methods; 4.14 Sending Files or Data Streams to the Browser; 4.15 Storing Session Information in a Database; 4.16 Tracking Information with Sessions; 4.17 Using Filters for Authentication; Chapter 5: Action View; 5.1 Introduction; 5.2 Simplifying Templates with View Helpers; 5.3 Displaying Large Datasets with Pagination; 5.4 Creating a Sticky Select List; 5.5 Editing Many-to-Many Relationships with Multiselect Lists; 5.6 Factoring Out Common Display Code with Layouts; 5.7 Defining a Default Application Layout; 5.8 Generating XML with Builder Templates; 5.9 Generating RSS Feeds from Active Record Data; 5.10 Reusing Page Elements with Partials; 5.11 Processing Dynamically Created Input Fields; 5.12 Customizing the Behavior of Standard Helpers; 5.13 Creating a Web Form with Form Helpers; 5.14 Formatting Dates, Times, and Currencies; 5.15 Personalizing User Profiles with Gravatars; 5.16 Avoiding Harmful Code in Views with Liquid Templates; 5.17 Globalizing Your Rails Application; Chapter 6: RESTful Development; 6.1 Introduction; 6.2 Creating Nested Resources; 6.3 Supporting Alternative Data Formats by MIME Type; 6.4 Modeling Relationships RESTfully with Join Models; 6.5 Moving Beyond Simple CRUD with RESTful Resources; 6.6 Consuming Complex Nested REST Resources; 6.7 Developing Your Rails Applications RESTfully; Chapter 7: Rails Application Testing; 7.1 Introduction; 7.2 Centralizing the Creation of Objects Common to Test Cases; 7.3 Creating Fixtures for Many-to-Many Associations; 7.4 Importing Test Data with CSV Fixtures; 7.5 Including Dynamic Data in Fixtures with ERb; 7.6 Initializing a Test Database; 7.7 Interactively Testing Controllers from the Rails Console; 7.8 Interpreting the Output of Test::Unit; 7.9 Loading Test Data with YAML Fixtures; 7.10 Monitoring Test Coverage with rake stats; 7.11 Running Tests with Rake; 7.12 Speeding Up Tests with Transactional Fixtures; 7.13 Testing Across Controooooollers with Integration Tests; 7.14 Testing Controllers with Functional Tests; 7.15 Examining the Contents of Cookie; 7.16 Testing Custom and Named Routes; 7.17 Testing HTTP Requests with Response-Related Assertions; 7.18 Testing a Model with Unit Tests; 7.19 Unit Testing Model Validations; 7.20 Verifying DOM Structure with Tag-Related Assertions; 7.21 Writing Custom Assertions; 7.22 Testing File Upload; 7.23 Modifying the Default Behavior of a Class for Testing by Using Mocks; 7.24 Improving Feedback by Running Tests Continuously; 7.25 Analyzing Code Coverage with Rcov; Chapter 8: JavaScript and Ajax; 8.1 Introduction; 8.2 Adding DOM Elements to a Page; 8.3 Creating a Custom Report with Drag and Drop; 8.4 Dynamically Adding Items to a Select List; 8.5 Monitoring the Content Length of a Textarea; 8.6 Updating Page Elements with RJS Templates; 8.7 Inserting JavaScript into Templates; 8.8 Letting a User Reorder a List; 8.9 Autocompleting a Text Field; 8.10 Searching for and Highlighting Text Dynamically; 8.11 Enhancing the User Interface with Visual Effects; 8.12 Implementing a Live Search; 8.13 Editing Fields in Place; 8.14 Creating an Ajax Progress Indicator; Chapter 9: Action Mailer; 9.1 Introduction; 9.2 Configuring Rails to Send Email; 9.3 Creating a Custom Mailer Class with the Mailer Generator; 9.4 Formatting Email Messages Using Templates; 9.5 Attaching Files to Email Messages; 9.6 Sending Email from a Rails Application; 9.7 Receiving Email with Action Mailer; Chapter 10: Debugging Rails Applications; 10.1 Introduction; 10.2 Exploring Rails from the Console; 10.3 Fixing Bugs at the Source with Ruby -cw; 10.4 Debugging Your Application in Real Time with the breakpointer; 10.5 Logging with the Built-in Rails Logger Class; 10.6 Writing Debugging Information to a File; 10.7 Emailing Application Exceptions; 10.8 Outputting Environment Information in Views; 10.9 Displaying Object Contents with Exceptions; 10.10 Filtering Development Logs in Real Time; 10.11 Debugging HTTP Communication with Firefox Extensions; 10.12 Debugging Your JavaScript in Real Time with the JavaScript Shell; 10.13 Debugging Your Code Interactively with ruby-debug; Chapter 11: Security; 11.1 Introduction; 11.2 Hardening Your Systems with Strong Passwords; 11.3 Protecting Queries from SQL Injection; 11.4 Guarding Against Cross-Site Scripting Attacks; 11.5 Restricting Access to Public Methods or Actions; 11.6 Securing Your Server by Closing Unnecessary Ports; Chapter 12: Performance; 12.1 Introduction; 12.2 Measuring Web Server Performance with Httperf; 12.3 Benchmarking Portions of Your Application Code; 12.4 Improving Performance by Caching Static Pages; 12.5 Expiring Cached Pages; 12.6 Mixing Static and Dynamic Content with Fragment Caching; 12.7 Filtering Cached Pages with Action Caching; 12.8 Speeding Up Data Access Times with memcached; 12.9 Increasing Performance by Caching Post-Processed Content; Chapter 13: Hosting and Deployment; 13.1 Introduction; 13.2 Hosting Rails Using Apache 1.3 and mod_fastcgi; 13.3 Managing Multiple Mongrel Processes with mongrel_cluster; 13.4 Hosting Rails with Apache 2.2, mod_proxy_balancer, and Mongrel; 13.5 Deploying Rails with Pound in Front of Mongrel, Lighttpd, and Apache; 13.6 Customizing Pound???s Logging with cronolog; 13.7 Configuring Pound with SSL Support; 13.8 Simple Load Balancing with Pen; 13.9 Deploying Your Rails Project with Capistrano; 13.10 Deploying Your Application to Multiple Environments with Capistrano; 13.11 Deploying with Capistrano When You Can???t Access Subversion; 13.12 Deploying with Capistrano and mongrel_cluster; 13.13 Disabling Your Web Site During Maintenance; 13.14 Writing Custom Capistrano Tasks; 13.15 Cleaning Up Residual Session Records; Chapter 14: Extending Rails with Plug-ins; 14.1 Introduction; 14.2 Finding Third-Party Plug-ins; 14.3 Installing Plug-ins; 14.4 Manipulating Record Versions with acts_as_versioned; 14.5 Building Authentication with acts_as_authenticated; 14.6 Simplifying Folksonomy with the acts_as_taggable; 14.7 Extending Active Record with acts_as; 14.8 Adding View Helpers to Rails as Plug-ins; 14.9 Uploading Files with file_column; 14.10 Uploading Files with acts_as_attachment; 14.11 Disabling Records Instead of Deleting Them with acts_as_paranoid; 14.12 Adding More Elaborate Authentication Using the Login Engine; Chapter 15: Graphics; 15.1 Introduction; 15.2 Installing RMagick for Image Processing; 15.3 Uploading Images to a Database; 15.4 Serving Images Directly from a Database; 15.5 Creating Resized Thumbnails with RMagick; 15.6 Generating PDF Documents; 15.7 Visually Displaying Data with Gruff; 15.8 Creating Small, Informative Graphs with Sparklines; Migrating to Rails 1.2; Action Controller; Active Record; Action View; Colophon;