rails :remote => true jQuery events

I constantly find myself looking these up, saving this link for future reference

https://github.com/rails/jquery-ujs/wiki/ajax

contains all of the rails custom jQuery events for remote forms, such as "ajax:success", "ajax:before"; also includes the method signatures.

Sending email with Rails Mailers, The Random bits...

See the rails guides and railscasts for getting started with Rails Mailers; 
this article includes some additional information on Rails Mailers not included in those articles.

RailsCasts: http://railscasts.com/episodes/206-action-mailer-in-rails-3
Rails Guides: "Action Mailer Basics" on the rails guides - The guide covers all of the common mailer tasks

• setup and configuration
• attachments
• layouts

Random Bits

These examples were created using rails 3.2

Add importance headers

	# importance flag on the email
	headers['Importance'] = 'high'
	headers['X-Priority'] = '1'
	headers['X-MSMail-Priority'] = 'High'

view raw rails_mailer_importance_headers.rb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

NOTE: many email clients will ignore these headers

Add receipt header

	# require email receipt
	headers['Return-Receipt-To'] = 'confirm@example.com'

view raw rails_mailer_recipt_header.rb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

NOTE: many email clients will ignore these headers

Testing mailer headers with rspec

If you have rspec-rails gem installed with your rails application then running the generator will stub out most of your mailer tests, including a fixture file for the mailer view, which you may or may not want to remove.

mail.header['X-MSMail-Priority'].value.should == 'High'

view raw rails_mailer_rspec_header.rb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

NOTE: test against mail.header, not mail.headers

Use a different layout for some Mailer actions

our default layout is the customer facing one but we want to override it in some cases

	class ExampleMailer < ActionMailer::Base
	default from: "from@example.com"
	# default layout for ExampleMailer
	layout "customer_email"
	# the order ready is sent to the customer and uses the default layout - customer_email
	def order_ready
	@greeting = "Hi"
	mail to: "to@example.org"
	end
	# the ready to ship email is internal only - use the internal layout
	def ready_to_ship
	@greeting = "Hi Hi"
	mail(to: "internal@example.org") do |format|
	format.html { render :layout => "internal_email" }
	format.text { render :layout => "internal_email" }
	end
	end
	end

view raw rails_mailer_alternate_layout.rb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Setting up a C.I. build (Continuous Integration) for a Ruby on Rails application

It has never been easier than with Semaphore - Hosted Continuous Integration

• https://semaphoreapp.com/

How easy is it

• add semaphore ssh key to your github repo
• then semaphore automatically determines your ruby version, database, etc...
• you can tweak the build steps later, the defaults are pretty good

It will automatically detect new branches!!! That means zero setup when the new branch is added

It is not cheap, for personal side projects it might not make sense?
But well worth the money if you are doing paid development

Git Log Formatting

The git log command is great and has tons of good information, but the output doesn't give you that nice 'overview' of the commit history, too much detail on too many lines

I've been using the following in my .gitconfig file

l = log -20 --format='%h %ad %d %an: %s' --date=short

typing 'git l' renders the following output:

Last night I watched the Destroy All Software "PRETTY GIT LOGS" screencast which takes 'git l' to the next level

• https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/pretty-git-logs
• https://github.com/garybernhardt/dotfiles/blob/master/.gitconfig
• https://github.com/garybernhardt/dotfiles/blob/master/.githelpers

now 'git l' renders

   

Helper script to delete git tags locally and remote

Might be useful to others, delete a bunch of git tags - remote and locally

	### matches all git tags that start with numeric value, update regex as needed
	# commands to remove local tags
	git tag -l | grep "^\d" | sed 's/^/tag -d /' > _remove_tags
	# commands to remove remote tags
	git tag -l | grep "^\d" | sed 's/^/push origin :refs\/tags\//' > _remove_tags_remote
	# review contents of file
	cat _remove_tags | while read line; do echo $line; done
	# execute each line in file
	cat _remove_tags | while read line; do git $line; done
	# review contents of file
	cat _remove_tags_remote | while read line; do echo $line; done
	# execute each line in file
	cat _remove_tags_remote | while read line; do git $line; done

view raw build-and-execute-multiple-git-commands.sh hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Resources

• http://nathanhoad.net/how-to-delete-a-remote-git-tag 
• http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/programming-9/bash-read-every-line-in-the-files-and-use-the-line-as-parameters-as-another-program-246291/
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1605232/use-bash-to-read-a-file-and-then-execute-a-command-from-the-words-extracted

414 Request-URI Too Large

How to configure nginx to accept larger querystring requests

Increase the 'large_client_header_buffers'

This is located in the 'http' section of the configuration

Example:

    http {
            # override to allow long query string
            large_client_header_buffers 8 512k;
         
            ...
    }

Resources

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1067334/how-to-set-the-allowed-url-length-for-a-nginx-request-error-code-414-uri-too 
• http://nginx.2469901.n2.nabble.com/Nginx-returning-414-even-when-large-client-header-buffers-is-set-td7451517.html
• http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxHttpCoreModule#large_client_header_buffers 

Unofficial Twitter Bootstrap Documentation

Unofficial Twitter Bootstrap Documentation
http://unofficial-twitter-bootstrap-documentation.com/

The current project I am working on is running bootstrap 2.0.2 and after the release of 2.1.0 the online documentation for 2.0.x was gone.

I went ahead and compiled the archive docs from the bootstrap github repo into a single site - hopefully others find it useful.

Rails - ActiveRecord created_by and updated_by gem

Often your application will want to track who created and updated your data.
On a previous rails 2 project I used a plugin called userstamp which worked well, but until recently it did not support rails 3+

I didn't find any other gems out there at the time, so I put together the clerk gem,
you can install it as a gem in your rails 3+ applications by adding gem 'clerk' to your Gemfile, see the README on github for details

NOTE: the current version relies on your database tables having columns named created_by_id and updated_by_id and the gem does not support any custom configuration.

• https://github.com/house9/clerk
• http://rubygems.org/gems/clerk 

postgres: random useful things

Run sql statements from the command line, use the -c flag

psql your_db -c "update users set is_active = 'f';"

view raw postgres_sql_command.sql.sh hosted with ❤ by GitHub

create a random value

	select md5(random()::text)

view raw postgres.random_value.sql hosted with ❤ by GitHub

crazy updates using regexp_matches

	-- changes joe.smith@gmail.com -> joe.smith@qa.com
	update users set email = replace(replace(regexp_matches(email, '.*@')::varchar, '{', ''), '}', '') || 'qa.com';
	-- there must be a better way to get rid of the {} chars returned by regexp_matches

view raw postgres.regexp_matches.sql hosted with ❤ by GitHub

postgres: terminate all database connections

Using psql from the command line you can terminate all connections to a database

	# replace your_db with the name of your database
	psql postgres -c "select pg_terminate_backend(procpid) from pg_stat_activity where datname='your_db';"

view raw postgres_disconnect.sql.sh hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Comes in handy when you want to do things like restore your staging or development database

	psql postgres -c "select pg_terminate_backend(procpid) from pg_stat_activity where datname='your_db';"
	dropdb your_db
	createdb --template=template0 --encoding=unicode your_db

view raw postgres_rebuild.sql.sh hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Resources

• http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/reference-client.html 
• http://blog.gahooa.com/2010/11/03/how-to-force-drop-a-postgresql-database-by-killing-off-connection-processes/ 

Git Workflow

This is the current git workflow we are using at work, your mileage may vary:

	Always start with
	# get the latest code
	git checkout master
	git pull --rebase
	# ==============
	Setup to work on new branch / feature
	You are going to be doing one of two things before adding new changes:
	# 1. Connect to an existing remote branch
	# run the following to get the names of all local and remote branches
	git branch -la
	# creating a new branch from the remote branch (with tracking)
	# and checking it out locally
	# replace NEW_BRANCH with the remote name
	# example: remotes/origin/xyz_branch - use xyz_branch in place of NEW_BRANCH
	git checkout --track -b NEW_BRANCH origin/NEW_BRANCH
	# 2. Create a new branch with remote tracking
	# from master - run the following
	# we are creating a new branch and checking it out locally
	git checkout -b NEW_BRANCH
	# from NEW_BRANCH - run the following
	# this will create the remote branch
	git push -u origin NEW_BRANCH
	# ==============
	Daily Tasks
	# do lots of work with commits on NEW_BRANCH
	...
	# typical commands used, be careful not to add unwanted files
	git status
	git add --all
	git add FILE_PATH_FOR_SPECIFIC_FILE
	git commit -m "COMMIT_MESSAGE"
	NOTE: make sure all files are committed before preforming pull or push
	# get code changes from other developers, from the branch
	git pull --rebase
	# push your commits to github for other developers
	git push
	# you may receive rejected messages on some branches
	# that is ok if they are from branches other than your branch
	# ==============
	Merge feature branch into master
	# merge new code into master in 1 clean commit - squash all branch commits
	git checkout NEW_BRANCH
	git pull --rebase
	git checkout master
	git pull --rebase
	git merge --squash NEW_BRANCH
	git status
	git commit -m "feature NEW_BRANCH"
	# push changes to the master branch on github
	git push
	# delete topic branch locally and then the remote (if desired)
	git branch -d NEW_BRANCH
	git push origin :NEW_BRANCH
	# ==============
	Long lived local branches
	# if a long lived branch, pull in code from master using rebase
	git checkout master
	git pull --rebase
	# add these changes to branch with rebase so the history stays clean
	# do NOT do this if using a shared remote branch
	git checkout NEW_BRANCH
	git rebase master
	WARNING: do not squash commits or rebase branches that have been sent to a remote repository, this should not be an issue for local only branches.
	# ==============
	Hot-fixes
	# you fix a bug on the master branch
	# and now you want it integrated into the current dev branch
	git checkout NEW_BRANCH
	git cherry-pick -x master
	# this will pull in the last commit from the master branch
	# NOTE: the commit ID (SHA) is different, this is really a copy of the commit
	# Since it will get squashed merged back into master later it will look like no change
	# You can also use a commit ID in-place of 'master' or specify ranges of commits
	# ==============
	Other useful commands
	# interactive rebase to squash back to master
	git checkout NEW_BRANCH
	git rebase -i master
	# create a remote branch with tracking from current branch
	git push -u origin REMOTE_BRANCH
	# delete remote branch (named REMOTE_BRANCH in this example)
	# note there is nothing on left side of the colon
	# this means push nothing to the remote branch origin/REMOTE_BRANCH
	git push origin :REMOTE_BRANCH
	# create a tag; 1620 in this case, it could contain any non-space characters, i.e. 1620-fix1
	git tag -a 1620 -m "TAG_MESSAGE"
	git show 1620
	# push tags to remote
	git push --tags
	# summary of the last few commits
	git log -16 --format='%h %ad %d %an: %s' --date=short

view raw git-workflow.rb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Resources

• http://cheat.errtheblog.com/s/git 
• http://yanpritzker.com/gitbook.html#Keeping+a+topic+branch+in+sync+with+its+parent 
• http://yanpritzker.com/gitbook.html#One+branch+per+bug 
• http://gitready.com/beginner/2009/02/02/push-and-delete-branches.html 
• http://gitready.com/advanced/2009/02/10/squashing-commits-with-rebase.html 
• http://sleeplessgeek.blogspot.com/2011/03/using-git-cherry-pick.html