Learning Ruby on Rails

Dreamhost added ability to host Rails app using Passenger

2008-05-13T22:21:00.000-07:00

I just saw this, Introducing Passenger for Ruby on Rails, on Dreamhost Blog. This should make deploying Rails applications on Dreamhost really simple now.

Passenger is mod_rails for Apache, as stated on their website. Maybe now is the time for me to give Dreamhost a try. I was thinking of installing Passenger on a VPS I use for testing purpose.

Rails is moving over to Github

2008-04-02T18:47:00.000-07:00

It looks like keeping up with edge Rails for Windows' users will get harder in the very near future. Here is the post announcing the move from using SVN to Git. I look into using Git on Windows before but it doesn't work well on Windows. It works if you run it on top of cygwin. Otherwise, it is a no go for now.

Developing Ruby on Windows Platform

2008-03-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

There is an interesting discussion over at Ruby Inside regarding "Is Windows a First Class Platform for Ruby"? I think there are two parts to this question.

Windows is definitely viable as a development platform using Ruby. I build and deployed a Rails website using Windows as the development platform. I had a few problems which I was able to overcome by googling around for a patch or two. No show stopper for sure. All the gems I need were working fine on Windows. A big thanks to those maintainers that kept their gems multi-platforms.

Windows as a deployment platform. I think this is where I draw the line. I didn't even think for a second about deploying the site on Windows. It is definitely not an option at all. Although, I am looking forward to IronRuby and its support for Rails. I know one of their goal is to be able to run Rails. IIS 7 is looking quite nice.

form_remote_tag with ajax and none ajax action

2008-02-04T15:31:00.000-08:00

Does anyone else having the same problem as I do when trying to set the url for AJAX and none AJAX actions for the form_remote_tag? I always seem to forget how to do this. It always take me a couple of tries to get this right. Anyway, I am putting the correct way to do this here so I come back later when I forget.


  <% form_remote_tag :url => {:controller => '/posts', :action => 'view'},
:html => {:action => {:controller => '/posts', :action => 'view', :id => @id}} do %>
    <%= submit_tag 'View' -%>
  <% end %>


<form action="/posts/view/1" method="post" 
onsubmit="new Ajax.Request('/posts/view/1', 
{asynchronous:true, evalScripts:true, parameters:Form.serialize(this)}); return false;">
    <input type="submit" value="View" />
</form>

What happened to nbrubyide daily build?

2008-01-30T11:25:00.000-08:00

What happened to daily build of nbrubyide? I have been checking the last few days and there is no new build. I am so used to getting my morning nbrubyide fix. This is not a complain. I am just wondering.

Here is where I go to download the latest build.
http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/ruby/changes

Converts a comma separated string of numbers into an array of integers

2008-01-17T23:51:00.000-08:00

This is all there is to convert a string of comma separated integers to an array of integers.


>> "1,24,53,6,23,6,5".split(",").collect{ |s| s.to_i }
=> [1, 24, 53, 6, 23, 6, 5]

This is why Ruby is so fun to use. Is there a shorter way to do this than what I have?

Expose Module methods as Instance and Class methods

2008-01-08T21:45:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered how to include a Module and has its methods be available as instance methods and class methods? I certainly did and after doing a little research I figured out a way to do this in Ruby. For the experience Ruby programmers out there, this is probably very obvious but for those that haven't completely figured out Class object and instance of a class then this should help a little. Or totally confused you.

I don't know whether it is wise to do this but at least it is possible to do. Anyway, enough talking. Here is the code in all it (not so) glory.


module Methods
 def self.included(base)
  # add methods in ClassMethods into the meta class
  base.extend(ClassMethods)
 end
 
 def hi
  # accessing the meta class to call the
  # real method
  class << self
   self.hi
  end
 end
 
 def bye
  class << self
   self.bye
  end
 end

 module ClassMethods
  def hi
   puts "Hello"
  end
  
  def bye
   puts "Good Bye"
  end
 end
end

class Greeting
 include Methods
end

# Calling Instance methods here
Greeting.new().hi
Greeting.new().bye

# calling Class methods here
Greeting.hi
Greeting.bye

Encryption Data in Ruby using OpenSSL

2008-01-05T03:40:00.000-08:00

I had been searching the web for a way to encrypt some data for my Rails project for a while and I finally found something that I could use. Encrypting Sensitive Data with Ruby (on Rails) has straight forward instructions on how to encrypt and decrypt data using OpenSSL in Ruby.

adding special helpers

2008-01-04T13:55:00.000-08:00

I was cleaning up my view and decided that I want to add two helpers, display_if and display_unless to help clean up the view.

Instead of doing:


<% if @login %>
  Hello <%= @user_name -%>.
<% end %>

It would be like this:


<% display_if @login %>
  Hello <%= @user_name -%>.
<% end %>

I came from the Asp.Net world so writing a custom control to do this is not easy. I was expecting it to be difficult in Rails also but it turned out to be very simple.

It took me less than 10 minutes to figure it out from not knowing how to do it at all. Hopefully, I am doing it correctly.
Here is the code for the two helpers. Just put them in your application_helper.rb file.


  def display_if(condition, &block)
    raise ArgumentError, "Missing block" unless block_given?

    if condition
      output = capture(&block)
      concat(output, block.binding)
    end
  end
  def display_unless(condition, &block)
    raise ArgumentError, "Missing block" unless block_given?
    
    unless condition
      output = capture(&block)
      concat(output, block.binding)
    end
  end

Understanding include and extend in Ruby

2007-12-30T13:37:00.000-08:00

I was watching a presentation by Dave Thomas called, "MetaProgramming - Extending Ruby for Fun and Profit", and realized that my understanding of include and extend is mixed up.

My Wrong Understanding
~~I thought "extend" will add methods from a module into a class as instance methods and "include" will add them as class methods.~~

Correct Understand:
"extend" adds methods from a module into a class as class methods.
"include" adds methods from a module into a class as instance methods.

It is quite easy to demonstrate this actually.


module SomeModule
  def hi
    puts "hello"
  end
end

class ExtendSample
  extend SomeModule
end

ExtendSample.hi

class IncludeSample
  include SomeModule
end

IncludeSample.new.hi

AUTO_INCREMENT MySQL

2007-12-17T18:03:00.000-08:00

There is a bug in MySQL that reset AUTO_INCREMENT if an index is added and the table is empty. I found a ticket regarding this issue in Ruby on Rails' bug tracker but it won't be fix because it is a MySQL bug.

Anyway, I reset AUTO_INCREMENT to my desire value after adding indexes to the table and that seems to work. Just remember to not add anymore indexes to the table after you set the AUTO_INCREMENT value or else it will be reset again.

Here is how to set the value manually.


execute "ALTER TABLE table1 AUTO_INCREMENT = 100"

added method to help create and drop foreign key

2007-12-14T00:26:00.001-08:00

We have a naming convention at my work place for foreign key so I made two methods to help in the creation and dropping of foreign key. I made them because I got tired of typing out the query everytime.

We name our foreign key like this: fk_table_column_reference_table_column. So a foreign key from a "users" table to the "employers" table would look like this. fk_users_employer_id.

This is how you call the method to create a foreign key.


create_foreign_key(:users, :employer_id, :employers, :id)
drop_foreign_key(:users, :employer_id)


  def create_foreign_key(table, column, foreign_table, foreign_column)
    execute "ALTER TABLE #{table.to_s} ADD CONSTRAINT fk_#{table.to_s}_#{column.to_s} FOREIGN KEY (#{column.to_s}) REFERENCES #{foreign_table}(#{foreign_column})"
  end

  def drop_foreign_key(table, column)
    execute "ALTER TABLE #{table.to_s} DROP FOREIGN KEY fk_#{table.to_s}_#{column.to_s}"
  end

NetBeans 6 - Out of Memory Exception

2007-12-10T13:58:00.000-08:00

Lately, I have been getting Out of Memory Exception every time NetBeans load up. This is the exception message, "java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space". I am using the daily build of the custom ide for Ruby development.

I fixed the problem by setting the max heap size to a 512 MB. This is how I start the ide.

nbrubyide.exe -J-Xmx512m

UPDATE: I just found out that I can set the max heap size in the nbrubyide.conf file. It is in the etc directory under c:\nbrubyide
I modified it to

default_options="-J-Xms24m -J-Xmx256m"

Rails 2.0.1 is out

2007-12-07T13:23:00.000-08:00

I am sure this is all over the web but Rails 2.0.1 is out and here is the announcement. I probably won't use it for my current project until after we do a release.

Mongrel installed in wrong location?

2007-12-03T14:52:00.001-08:00

I just reinstall my rails stack to use ruby 1.8.6 and mongrel wouldn't start. I kept getting this error instead.

C:/languages/ruby/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in `gem_original_require': no such file to load -- C:/languages/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mongrel-1.1.1-x86-mswin32-60/lib/mongrel/init.rb (MissingSourceFile)

Which is strange since Mongrel is one of the install gem when I do gem list. Here are my install gems.

*** LOCAL GEMS ***

actionmailer (1.3.6)
actionpack (1.13.6)
actionwebservice (1.2.6)
activerecord (1.15.6)
activesupport (1.4.4)
capistrano (2.1.0)
cgi_multipart_eof_fix (2.5.0)
gem_plugin (0.2.3)
highline (1.4.0)
mongrel (1.1.1)
needle (1.3.0)
net-sftp (1.1.0)
net-ssh (1.1.2)
rails (1.2.6)
rake (0.7.3)

I can see mongrel is installed under mongrel-1.1.1-mswin32 but the system was trying to look for mongrel under mongrel-1.1.1-x86-mswin32-60.

I rename my mongrel directory to mongrel-1.1.1-x86-mswin32-60 and everything works. I wonder if I did something wrong or Mongrel just installed in the wrong directory. I am using gem 0.9.5 and it just figures out the correct version of mongrel and install it by itself so I didn't have the chance to pick which version of mongrel I wanted to install.

NetBeans IDE 6.0 M10 is out

2007-07-17T13:58:00.000-07:00

Netbeans 6.0 M10 is out. There are many editing and debugging improvement for RHTML files. Here is the new feature sections for Ruby development.

Find Usages
Rename Refactoring
RHTML support
- Debugging (breakpoints, stepping etc. in RHTML files)
- Code completion
- Go to declaration
- Find Usages
- Rename
Improved code completion - attributes, Rails migrations, models and views now include all the expected methods, etc.
Enhanced RDoc rendering; embedded Ruby and RHTML code fragments are now syntax highlighted
Debugger enhancements (global vars, watch view, locals view)
Encoding support (projects now have an encoding property)
Basic RSpec and ZenTest support (More Info), basic RJS support
JRuby 1.0 is bundled

Developing ROR using Emacs

2007-07-17T13:41:00.000-07:00

I saw a few screencast on using Emacs to do ROR development but I was not able to setup emacs to try it out until I saw this five part series on setting up Emacs for Ruby on Rails development from Software bits and pieces.

http://sodonnell.wordpress.com/the-emacs-newbie-guide-for-rails/

After following guide step by steps I was able to get emacs up and running for developing ROR. Initially emacs started up with an error and it wasn't able to go into ROR mode. I found out I was missing inf-ruby which you can get it here. If you following the tutorial then put this file in your c:/emacs-22.1/includes/ directory. After putting the file there, everything works.

I found another site, credmp, also with instructions on how to setup emacs for ROR development. Ruby On Rails and Emacs It also list out the snippets that the emacs-rails supports.

Build FaceBook Application using Rails

2007-07-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

Here are links to two blog articles on how to build FaceBook application using Rails.

From GIANT ROBOTS SMASHING INTO OTHER GIANT ROBOTS:

fist in your facebook

From Liverail >> Rails with currents:

Tutorial on developing a Facebook platform application with Ruby On Rails

Where to put the code

2007-06-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

That is the question I ask all the time while developing in Rails. Should I put the code in the helper or in the model or in the controller itself. I guess I need to find some advance Rails reading material. On that note, Roby on Rails has a collection of links to making the model fat and the controller skinny. Put Your Controller on a Diet already!

After reading those blog posts, I am seeing myself putting some serious time in slim up my controllers. They are a little on the heavy side for sure.

observe_field and radio_button

2007-05-08T12:43:00.000-07:00

I had a group of radio buttons that I wanted to trigger some action when one of the button is selected. I setup an observe_field for each radio button but it didn't work. You can't specify observe_field to monitor a group of radio buttons. It would only monitor the first button. Actually, let me clarify that statement. It would work the first time a user click on the button but then subsequence click would not register as something has changed. Apparently, it keeps the last value and when the radio button is selected again, the last value and the current value is the same. That result in a no change. I ended up using onclick with remote_function to trigger the change event.

This is what I had and it doesn't work.

<%= radio_button_tag 'ship_method', 'pickup', :checked => true -%> Pickup

<%= radio_button_tag 'ship_method', 'deliver' -%> Deliver

<%= observe_field 'ship_method_pickup',
:url => { :controller => 'checkout', :action => 'ship_method_select' },
:on => 'click', :with => 'method' -%>

<%= observe_field 'ship_method_deliver',
:url => { :controller => 'checkout', :action => 'ship_method_select' },
:on => 'click', :with => 'method' -%>

This is what I ended up with

<input type="radio" name='ship_method' id='ship_method_pickup'
 checked="checked" value="pickup"
onclick="<%=
remote_function(
:url => {:controller => 'checkout', :action => 'ship_method_select', :method => 'pickup'}
)-%>" />

How to pass a class or id to link_to_remote

2007-05-07T00:55:00.000-07:00

This does seem like a really simple thing now that I figured out how to do it.

<%= link_to_remote 'Name',
{:url => {:controller => 'some_controller', :action =>'some_action', :id => some_id}},{ :class => 'some_class' }-%>

If you want to specify a fall back url for href instead of the default # you can put that in the html_options part also.

<%= link_to_remote 'Name',
{:url => {:controller => 'some_controller', :action => 'some_action', :id => some_id}},
{:class => 'some_class', :href => url_for({:controller => 'some_controller', :action => 'some_action', :id => some_id}) }-%>

NetBeans IDE 6.0 M9 is out

2007-05-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

I just saw that NetBeans 6 Milestone 9 was released. Go here to see all the changes for M9. There are many new features added for Javascript. You can edit embedded Javascript and CSS inside HTML/JSP. Of course, there are new features for Ruby editing.

Here is the list of changes for Ruby from the site.

Advanced code editing: Code completion, Documentation Popup, Semantic highlighting (such as unused local variable coloring), Parameter Hints, Instant Rename, Goto Declaration, Live Code Templates, Mark Occurrences, Reformatting, Pair Matching, Smart Selection, Surround With

Project support: Create and run files, run unit tests, run RSpec specifications, jump between files and their testcases, Ruby Gems support, ability to use any version of either JRuby or native Ruby

Ruby Debugger, including Rails debugging - run/step, breakpoints, local variables, call stack, thread switching, balloon evaluation, etc. Support for native fast debugging.

Ruby On Rails support: Code Generator wizard, Database Migrations, Rake Targets, Support for generator plugins, Jump between Action and View, RHTML highlighting

Download and try it out for yourself.

NetBeans IDE 6.0 M8 is out

2007-04-01T01:11:00.000-07:00

I just installed NetBeans IDE 6.0 M8 and noticed that you can start and stop WEBrick within NetBeans now. Before this release, you would have to kill the java task from the task manager which was a pain. I actually didn't use WEBrick within the ide because of this problem. Instead, I just run it from the command line using the native ruby interpreter instead of jruby.

Before I was able to use the WEBrick instance started by NetBeans, I need to setup the project to use the jdbc adapter for MySQL. Since I didn't really bother reading much instruction, I encountered quite a few problems.

Here are the steps I used to get everything working.

1. Modify environment.rb and add these lines in right before Rails::Initializer:


if RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /java/
  require 'rubygems'
  RAILS_CONNECTION_ADAPTERS = %w(jdbc)
end

Rails::Initializer.run do |config|

2. Modify database.yml to use the jdbc adapter. Of course, instead of test_development, you put your own database name there.


development:
  adapter: jdbc
  driver: com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
  username: root
  password: password
  url: jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/test_development

3. Download the JDBC driver for MySQL.
Download Connector/J 5.0
Unzip or untar the archive and copy mysql-connector-java-5.0.5-bin.jar to your jruby-0.9.8\lib.

You can find your jruby-0.9.8 directory under
C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\.netbeans\

I found this step to be quite important because adding the driver to CLASSPATH did not work for me.

NetBeans also exposed more rake tasks than before.

How to use migration

2007-03-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

Yavor Ivanov over at rubycorner.net started a mini series on Rails migration. So far there is one article and I already learned a few things that I didn't know.

How to use Rails Migrations - Part I

I created a table with :created_at column as :null => false but I didn't define the default value so I was having problem with specifying the datetime in my test fixture.

I solved that problem by putting this in my test fixture:

created_at: <%= DateTime.now.strftime('%y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') %>

What I really should have done is created the column like this.

t.column :created_at, :datetime, :default => Time.now

Ruby on Rails Caching

2007-03-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

Gregg Pollack over at Rails Envy posted two articles on Ruby on Rails Caching. If you have performance issue, you might want to check them out.

Ruby on Rails Caching Tutorial - Part 1

Ruby on Rails Caching Tutorial - Part 2

Ruby on Rails screencasts

2007-03-19T22:23:00.000-07:00

I found this website, Railscasts, that has free Ruby on Rails screencasts. So far, there are 7 screencasts and they are posted pretty regularly.

Acts As State Machine plugin

2007-03-16T12:52:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Bruce Tate article, Crossing borders: Extensions in Rails (The anatomy of an acts_as plug-in), where he mentioned the acts_as_state_machine plugin for Rails. If you ever have model with known transition paths between different states then this plugin will be a great help to you.

Here is an article, The Complete Guide to Rails Plugins: Part 1, on Nuby on Rails showing how to install and create Rails plugin.

And finally, you can go to the acts_as_state_machine plugin's author blog, Acts As State Machine, to see where to download and how to use the plugin.

Here is my example of how to use the plugin to keep track of a light fixture with three state (off, low, and high).


# The Migration class for light
class CreateLights < ActiveRecord::Migration
 def self.up
   create_table :lights do |t|
  t.column :name, :string
  t.column :status, :string
   end
 end

 def self.down
   drop_table :lights
 end
end

# The Model for light

# A simple transition for a light with three states, (off, low, high)
#
#  +---------+ switch  +---------+ switch  +---------+
#  | off     |-------->| low     |-------->| high    |
#  +---------+         +---------+         +---------+
#     ^                                         |
#     |_________________________________________|
#
class Light < ActiveRecord::Base
 acts_as_state_machine :initial => :off, :column => 'status'

 state :off
 state :low
 state :high

 event :switch do
   transitions :from => :off,  :to => :low
   transitions :from => :low,  :to => :high
   transitions :from => :high, :to => :off
 end
end

-------------------------
Here is a sample run:

>> l = Light.create
=> ...
>> l.current_state
=> :off
>> l.switch!
=> nil
>> l.current_state
=> :low
>> l.switch!
=> nil
>> l.current_state
=> :high
>> l.switch!
=> nil
>> l.current_state
=> :off

Tips for working with Test Fixtures in Rails

2007-03-15T00:15:00.000-07:00

I have a requirement in my migration script that created_at column can not be null.

t.column :created_at, :datetime, :null => false

This cause the Test Fixtures loading to fail. My first attempt to remedy this problem was like this.

created_at: <%= DateTime.now %>

This did not work since the date time format is incorrect. The correct format is year-month-day hour:minute:second.

So, I changed it to

created_at: <%= DateTime.now.strftime('%y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') %>

and it works.

I don't know if there is a better way to do this but this works for me. Since I went around looking for the solution, I decided to write it down.

Validate a number is an integer and within a certain range

2007-03-14T01:24:00.000-07:00

Use validates_numericality_of , and validates_inclusion_of to check that a number is an integer and within a certain range.

For example:

You only want to allow people to enter a number between 21 and 30. Here is how you would do it.

validates_numericality_of :n, :only_integer => true, :message => "can only be whole number."
validates_inclusion_of :n, :in => 21..30, :message => "can only be between 21 and 30."

Ruby on Rails Quick Reference

2007-03-13T23:32:00.000-07:00

I was looking for a way to update my rails application to rails 1.2.3 when I found this guide, Ruby on Rails Quick Reference. It has descriptions to many frequently use rails features.

rake rails:update is how you update your rails application.

Found a cheat sheet with a great deal of information:

Ruby on Rails 1.1 Reference

Drop Derby and goes back to MySql

2007-03-13T01:31:00.000-07:00

After my rant yesterday about Derby not supporting column rename, I checked ActiveRecord-JDBC document for Derby and column_rename is not one of the supported feature.

Here is the list of databases and the level of support taken from the document.

MySQL - Complete support
PostgreSQL - Complete support
Oracle - Complete support
Microsoft SQL Server - Complete support except for change_column_default
DB2 - Complete, except for the migrations:
- change_column
- change_column_default
- remove_column
- rename_column
- add_index
- remove_index
- rename_table
FireBird - Complete, except for change_column_default and rename_column
Derby - Complete, except for:
- change_column
- change_column_default
- remove_column
- rename_column
HSQLDB - Complete

Since MySql is completely supported, I switch to using MySql as the database back end for development.

I did notice one little problem with Netbeans today. The "Generate" menu item disappeared from the menu for some reason. I closed and reopened Netbeans but that didn't do anything. Finally, I closed the project, reopen it and the Generate menu item came back. It only happened once. I don't remember what I did to cause the problem though.

Derby does not support renaming column

2007-03-12T00:45:00.000-07:00

-- rename_column(:users, :username, :user_name)
rake aborted!
rename_column is not implemented

Opps, I hit another snag when trying to rename username to user_name. Apparently, Derby does not allow renaming of column. I wiped out the database and started over but that is not a practical way to do thing going forward. I think my experiment with Derby is coming in an end here. I wonder why Sun is endorsing a database that is missing such fundamental feature. I don't remember using a database that does not support renaming of column. I guess there is a first for everything.

Now, I regretted that I read, "If You Thought Rails Development Was Fast Before...". I wouldn't have tried Derby without reading that article. It should be renamed to "If You Thought Rails Development Was Fast Before... Here Is How To Slow Yourself Down". I know it is a cheap shot but that article really make me think that I would be more productive using Derby as my development database.

Using Rails migration with Netbeans 6.0 M7

2007-03-11T23:39:00.000-07:00

I hit a temporary road block while following the steps from this article, If You Thought Rails Development Was Fast Before.... I wanted to use migration instead of sql to create the table in the database. After using the generator to create the migration file, I couldn't figure out how to call the db:migrate task in rake. There is no obvious way to call it from Netbeans 6 itself. I look everywhere but I couldn't find anything. I look in jruby-0.9.2 directory and rake is there but there is no bat file to call it. So, I created a bat file to call rake then execute rake db:migrate directly from the command prompt. That did the trick.

Here is the link to a Derby tutorial on how to create a new database in Derby from Netbeans.

Derby Tutorial

OpenID and Rails

2007-03-08T13:50:00.000-08:00

Ruby Inside has a collection of links to discusses and resources on OpenID and Rails. At the bottom, there is a link to Bernie Thompson's screencast and additional OpenId resources.

OpenID for Rails - Bernie Thompson

8 OpenID Resources for Rails Developers - Ruby Inside

Rails' validators

2007-03-07T18:32:00.000-08:00

Every wonder how to use all those validators (validates_presence_of, validates_uniqueness_of, validates_size_of, validates_acceptance_of, etc..), in Rails? Head over to Juixe TechKnow and read Rails Model Validators. The author has simple samples and explanations for those and a few more.

Screencast of Ruby editing features in Netbeans 6

2007-03-05T21:05:00.000-08:00

Roman Strobl, famous for creating screencasts of Matisse GUI Builder in Netbeans 5.0, is at it again. This time he created two screencasts to demonstrate Ruby and Ruby on Rails features in Netbeans 6.

Two Demos: JRuby on Rails and Advanced Ruby Editing in NetBeans

Ruby Block

2007-03-04T01:04:00.000-08:00

If you use Ruby for any thing more than a simple "hello world" program then you probably hit Ruby block and closure. I write a lot of Ruby code to process data files. This is an ideal way to open a text file and process all lines within it.


File.open("filename", "r") do |file|
   file.each_line do |line|
       # do something with the line
   end
end

It automatically close the file when it reached the end of the file.

If you want to learn more about Ruby block then head over to Darwinweb and read Ruby Blocks as Closure.

Great tips for .Net developers moving over to Ruby

2007-03-02T21:26:00.000-08:00

Over at Softies on Rails, Jeff Cohen has a great on going series of articles titled, Ruby on Rails for .Net developers. The latest one is on map and collection. I find them quite interesting and helpful. In his example, he has C# codes and the equivalent Ruby codes for us to have a frame of reference when learning to write code in the Ruby way.

I am a .Net developer by day and a Ruby adventurer by night. Although, I am trying to use more and more Ruby code in my day job. I am currently using Ruby for all my scripting needs. Before Ruby, I was using Perl and that was an adventure.

Anyway, if you are a .Net developer and wondering what Ruby is all about then you definitely should check out Softies on Rails.

Netbeans 6 and auto completion

2007-03-02T19:05:00.000-08:00

I started to use Netbeans for all my ruby programming tasks and the auto completion is wonderful. Before, I had to search around Ruby Doc for various libraries and methods but now I can just type the class name and press ctrl-space to get all the methods info. I do find one problem with the auto completion though. When I am editing a single file and not a ruby project, I don't get any auto completion help beside the basic variables within the file. I do get the syntax highlighting though. Unfortunately, a lot of my ruby scripts are quick and dirty and do not warrant creating a whole project just to write it. Maybe there is a way to activate the auto completion in single file editing mode. Anyway, beside that little problem, everything is working great so far.

Articles about Rails Performance on the web

2007-03-01T23:03:00.000-08:00

This blog entry, Rails Performance Link Fest, from Juixe TechKnow has a ton of links to various web resources regarding Rail Performances.

NetBeans IDE 6.0 M7

2007-03-01T11:30:00.000-08:00

My eternal search for a Ruby editor led me to NetBeans IDE 6.0 M7. It is still in the earlier stage of development but I find its Ruby supports to be pretty good. It has code completion and syntax highlighting. The code completion part is what I like about it. I can't live without code completion.

You can get milestone 7 by going to http://www.netbeans.info/downloads/dev.php and select Q-Build for Build Type. Then download NetBeans IDE 6.0 m7 build 200702191730.

Here is a series of screenshot from Tor Norbye's Weblog

Ruby Screenshot of the Week
Ruby Screenshot of the Week #2
Ruby Screenshot of the Week #3
Ruby Screenshot of the Week #4
Ruby Screenshot of the Week #5

Running Mongrel on Windows

2007-02-28T00:12:00.000-08:00

Mongrel Win32 HOWTO, from Mongrel shows how to run Mongrel on Windows environment.

GeoKit

2007-02-11T12:12:00.000-08:00

Andre Lewis from Web 2.0 Technologies website has published a new plugin for Rails that does geocoding, location fingers, and distance calculation.

Description from website:

Geokit is a Rails plugin for building location-based apps. It provides geocoding, location finders, and distance calculation in one cohesive package. If you have any tables with latitude/longitude oolumns in your database, or if you every wanted to easily query for "all the stores within a 50 mile radius," then GeoKit is for you.

GeoKit: a plugin for location-based Rails apps - Web 2.0 Technologies

In-memory and in-database distance calculations -Web 2.0 Technologies

Use Google's smtp server within your Rails application

2007-02-11T11:47:00.000-08:00

If you use Google Apps for your domain and has a need to use Google's smtp server to send out email within your Rails application then head over to Depixelate to see how.

Rails and Google Apps / Gmail Integration - Depixelate

begin rescue else end

2007-02-09T16:19:00.000-08:00

Jamis Buck points out the not open used "else" clause of the begin end block. Apparently, the begin end clause can have an else in there.

For example:

begin
# Your normal code block
rescue SomeException
# ... handling exception
else
# This part only run if the main code did not throw
# an exception.
ensure
# The very last thing to be run before the clause exit.
# Code in the ensure clause will always get execute.
end

You can read more about this at Jamis Buck blog entry, begin + else.

Ruby compiler for .Net

2007-02-09T16:13:00.000-08:00

If you are a .Net developer but want to write Ruby code, this might be something you want to take a look. It compiles Ruby code into .Net binary so you can run it like normal .Net program.

Gardens Point Ruby.NET Compiler

From their website:

"We are pleased to announce the release of a new Beta (version 0.6) of the Gardens Point Ruby.NET compiler. Implementation is not yet complete but we have now implemented the vast majority of Ruby's builtin classes and modules. We have fixed large numbers of existing bugs, but many still remain. We have not yet implemented continuations or Ruby threads but support most other language features.

In addition to passing all 871 tests in the samples/test.rb installation test suite of Ruby 1.8.2, we are now able to support the standard Ruby test unit library and pass most of the 1864 assertions in the test/ruby test directory."

Extending ActionController

2007-02-09T15:58:00.000-08:00

Robby Russel from Robby on Rails blog wrote an article on extending the ActionController. Extending the ActionController seems to be quite easy.

Extending ActionController - Roby on Rails

Intype code editor

2007-02-08T14:56:00.000-08:00

For all of those people that want to use TextMate on Windows. This editor might be the answer.

From Intype's website:

"Intype is a powerful and intuitive code editor for Windows with lightning fast response. It is easily extensible and customizable, thanks in part to its support for scripting and native plug-ins. It makes development in any programming or scripting language quick and easy."

If you are having problem with the new RubyGems

2007-02-06T22:17:00.000-08:00

If you are getting

ERROR: While executing gem … (NoMethodError) undefined  
 method `refresh’ for #

lately then here might be a fix to your problem.

In case you're having trouble installing gems

Using Captchator service in Rails

2007-02-05T17:05:00.000-08:00

Here is an article, Captchator on Rails, from ERR THE BLOG on how to use the Captchator web service within your Rails application. If for some reason you can't use a local captcha method or don't want to host your own captcha then this might be a good alternative.

Paging in Rails

2007-02-05T16:41:00.000-08:00

The author of ERR THE BLOG finds paging in Rails not up to his standard so he wrote his own paging code. He packed it up as a plugin and now we all can enjoy the fruit of his labor. There are some interesting comments to his blog entry that you might want to take a look.

I Will Paginate - ERR THE BLOG

Hpricot - HTML Parser for Ruby

2007-02-04T09:54:00.000-08:00

Hpricot - HTML Parser for Ruby

Active Merchant

2007-02-04T09:34:00.000-08:00

Active Merchant is a payment library extracted from Shopify. Here is an article, Processing Credit Cards with Ruby on Rails, on how to use it with Authorize.net payment gateway from OmniNerd.

The list of supported payment gateways from Active Merchant website.

Direct payment gateways:

Authorize.net
Moneris
TrustCommerce
LinkPoint
Psigate
Paypal Payments Pro
Eway
USA ePay
Paypal Payflow Pro (Testing)

Offsite payment gateways:

Paypal
Chronopay
Nochex

Steps to setup Ruby, Rails, and MySQL on MAC OS X

2007-02-04T00:01:00.000-08:00

Link to an article with detail instructions for setting up Ruby, Rails, and MySQL on MAC OS X.
Building Ruby, Rails, Subversion, Mongrel, and MySQL on Mac OS X from HIVELOGIC.

Rails deployment help

2007-02-02T10:02:00.000-08:00

If you have problems with deploying your rails application, you might want to go to this Google Group's rails-deployment for some help.

Presentations from San Diego ruby users group

2007-02-02T09:44:00.000-08:00

sd.rb podcast

The San Diego ruby users group posted various videos of presentations at their meetings on ruby.

RadRails 0.7.2

2007-02-02T09:20:00.000-08:00

RadRails is up to version 0.7.2 now.

Piston

2007-02-02T09:04:00.000-08:00

Piston

If you use svn:externals to manage plugins for your rails application then this utility will definitely make your life easier. It allows you to keep a copy of the plugin in your local repository and also allows you to update it with the external source.

What is the benefit of having a local copy of the plugin in your repository versus using svn:external? When you do svn update, it will be a lot faster since it doesn't need to go out to external repositories to check for updates.

When you want to sync the plugin with the external source, all you have to do is type:

$piston update vendor/rails

and then

$svn commit --message "sync up plugins with external source"

Life couldn't be easier.

RadRails 0.5

2005-11-25T01:45:00.000-08:00

RadRails 0.5 was released. These guys are working hard even on holiday.

Step by Step Instruction on Installing Ruby on Rails on Ubuntu 5.04

2005-11-25T01:13:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to a step by step instruction on installing Ruby on Rails on Ubuntu 5.04. I switched my installation from using the Rails version that comes from Ubuntu to the one installed through RubyGems. The reason I did this was to be able to use the latest version of Rails.

Links to Ruby on Rails Tutorials

2005-11-20T01:45:00.000-08:00

Digitial Media Minutes posted 12 Top Links to Ruby on Rails tutorials. It is definitely something you should look into if you want to learn about Ruby on Rails. It has tutorials on everything from beginning development to deployment.

Finally managed to get RadRails working on Ubuntu 5.04

2005-11-12T02:19:00.000-08:00

I finally managed to get RadRails working on my Linux machine. The reason I was having problem connecting to MySQL database was because I didn't turn on networking for MySQL. Yes, I am an idiot but it wasn't obvious that MySQL is skipping networking. It was only using socket and not TCP/IP.

I forgot the reason why I was doing netstat -a on the machine. But while looking through the list I didn't see any process listening on port 3306. That was odd since I was expecting MySQL to be listening to that port. I took a look at /etc/mysql/my.cnf and sure enough port=3306 is there. So, the next obvious step was googling to see why that is the case. I found this post which talk about skip_networking option in my.cnf. I look at my own my.cnf and skip_networking was enabled. I commented it out and restarted MySQL. I could see a process listening on port 3306 after doing a netstat -a. I tried to telnet to the port but got this error, "localhost.localdomain' is not allowed to connect to this MySQL server Connection closed by foreign host".

So, I added localhost.localdomain to the list of allowed hosts in MySQL and I was able to telnet to port 3306. I fired up RadRails and attempted to start the server. I still get the database connection error but now there is an error message about todo@localhost.localdomain is not allow. I went ahead and added the user to the database and now everything is working. I can finally use RadRails to start developing the Todo tutorial. I probably has the least secure MySQL server in the world but it is behind the firewall so it shouldn't be a problem.

Also, RadRails 0.4.1 is out. I can't wait until I have some free time to spend playing around with Ruby on Rails.

RadRails 0.4

2005-10-31T23:44:00.000-08:00

RadRails 0.4 is out.

I am still having the same database connection problem though. I found this post on Sam Ruby's blog that describes my problem but there is still no solution.

I also ordered Agile Web Development with Rails and Programming Ruby (2nd. Ed.) to further my knowledge on Ruby on Rails.

Setting up Rails in Eclipse

2005-10-21T12:17:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since my last post. I tried to use http://www.radrails.org/ with Eclipse but there seems to be a problem with connecting to the database. I think it has something to do with the new password encryption scheme that MySQL uses. Every time I try to start the web server, it complains about not being able to connect to the database. But the web site actually work and I can get data back from the database. I also not able to create scaffolding since it can't connect to the database. I haven't look deeply to see what is the real reason for the failure yet.

I also found this website that has instructions on how to setup Rails for Eclipse on Windows. I don't see a reason why these instruction wouldn't work in a Linux environment with some minor changes.

http://www.napcs.com/howto/railsonwindows.html

Hopefully, I will find sometime to give these instructions a try.

Installing Ruby on Rails

2005-09-10T03:32:00.000-07:00

The first step in the learning process is actually installing Ruby on Rails into my computer. I have a Dell Inspiron 5000 with Ubuntu 5.04. Installing rails is as simple as adding hoary-backports repository to /etc/apt/sources.list and do an apt-get update and apt-get install rails.

Here is the installation instructions for Ruby on Rails on Ubuntu.