House 9: November 2011

Saturday, November 12, 2011

The content for this post is all from a gist, hopefully someone finds it useful

	# create new rails app
	rails new routes_and_stuff
	cd routes_and_stuff

	# generate a user scaffold
	rails generate scaffold user
	bundle exec rake db:migrate

	# checkout routes
	bundle exec rake routes

	# test some in the console
	rails console
	puts new_user_path
	# => NameError: undefined local variable or method `new_user_path' for main:Object

	# we need to include the routes module
	include Rails.application.routes.url_helpers
	puts new_user_path
	# => /users/new
	# => nil

	# much better, now lets try testing a link_to
	link_to 'New User', new_user_path
	# => NoMethodError: undefined method `link_to' for main:Object

	# need the module that contains link_to
	include ActionView::Helpers
	link_to 'New User', new_user_path

	# => SystemStackError: stack level too deep from ... Maybe IRB bug!!
	# ok, a road I do not want to go down, lets do this the easy way

	# you might need to exit and re-launch console, then...
	class LinkHelper; include ActionView::Helpers; end
	helper = LinkHelper.new
	helper.link_to 'New User', new_user_path
	# => "<a href=\"/users/new\">New User</a>"
	helper.link_to 'Users', users_path
	# => "<a href=\"/users\">Users</a>"

	# now we can test out some stuff, like request the same page with .csv extension
	params = { :email => "%@testing.com", :is_active => true }
	helper.link_to 'Users CSV Export', users_path(params.merge(:format => :csv))
	# => "<a href=\"/users.csv?email=%25%40testing.com&is_active=true\">Users CSV Export</a>"

	# http://house9.blogspot.com/2011/11/sample-routes-and-links-with-rails-3-in.html