148 lines
6.1 KiB
Plaintext
148 lines
6.1 KiB
Plaintext
A Guide to The Rails Command Line
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=================================
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Rails comes with every command line tool you'll need to
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* Create a Rails application
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* Generate models, controllers, database migrations, and unit tests
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* Start a development server
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* Mess with objects through an interactive shell
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* Profile and benchmark your new creation
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... and much, much more! (Buy now!)
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This tutorial assumes you have basic Rails knowledge from reading the Getting Started with Rails Guide.
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== Command Line Basics ==
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There are a few commands that are absolutely critical to your everyday usage of Rails. In the order of how much you'll probably use them are:
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* console
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* server
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* rake
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* generate
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* rails
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Let's create a simple Rails application to step through each of these commands in context.
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=== rails ===
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The first thing we'll want to do is create a new Rails application by running the `rails` command after installing Rails.
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NOTE: You know you need the rails gem installed by typing `gem install rails` first, right? Okay, okay, just making sure.
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[source,shell]
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------------------------------------------------------
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$ rails commandsapp
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create
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create app/controllers
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create app/helpers
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create app/models
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...
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...
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create log/production.log
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create log/development.log
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create log/test.log
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------------------------------------------------------
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Rails will set you up with what seems like a huge amount of stuff for such a tiny command! You've got the entire Rails directory structure now with all the code you need to run our simple application right out of the box.
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NOTE: This output will seem very familiar when we get to the `generate` command. Creepy foreshadowing!
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=== server ===
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Let's try it! The `server` command launches a small web server written in Ruby named WEBrick which was also installed when you installed Rails. You'll use this any time you want to view your work through a web browser.
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NOTE: WEBrick isn't your only option for serving Rails. We'll get to that in a later section. [XXX: which section]
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Here we'll flex our `server` command, which without any prodding of any kind will run our new shiny Rails app:
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[source,shell]
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------------------------------------------------------
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$ cd commandsapp
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$ ./script/server
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=> Booting WEBrick...
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=> Rails 2.2.0 application started on http://0.0.0.0:3000
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=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server; call with --help for options
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[2008-11-04 10:11:38] INFO WEBrick 1.3.1
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[2008-11-04 10:11:38] INFO ruby 1.8.5 (2006-12-04) [i486-linux]
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[2008-11-04 10:11:38] INFO WEBrick::HTTPServer#start: pid=18994 port=3000
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------------------------------------------------------
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WHOA. With just three commands we whipped up a Rails server listening on port 3000. Go! Go right now to your browser and go to http://localhost:3000. I'll wait.
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See? Cool! It doesn't do much yet, but we'll change that.
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=== generate ===
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The `generate` command uses templates to create a whole lot of things. You can always find out what's available by running `generate` by itself. Let's do that:
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[source,shell]
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------------------------------------------------------
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$ ./script/generate
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Usage: ./script/generate generator [options] [args]
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...
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...
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Installed Generators
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Builtin: controller, integration_test, mailer, migration, model, observer, performance_test, plugin, resource, scaffold, session_migration
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...
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...
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------------------------------------------------------
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NOTE: You can install more generators through generator gems, portions of plugins you'll undoubtedly install, and you can even create your own!
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Using generators will save you a large amount of time by writing *boilerplate code* for you -- necessary for the darn thing to work, but not necessary for you to spend time writing. That's what we have computers for, right?
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Let's make our own controller with the controller generator. But what command should we use? Let's ask the generator:
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NOTE: All Rails console utilities have help text. For commands that require a lot of input to run correctly, you can just try the command without any parameters (like `rails` or `./script/generate`). For others, you can try adding `--help` or `-h` to the end, as in `./script/server --help`.
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[source,shell]
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------------------------------------------------------
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$ ./script/generate controller
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Usage: ./script/generate controller ControllerName [options]
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...
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...
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Example:
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`./script/generate controller CreditCard open debit credit close`
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Credit card controller with URLs like /credit_card/debit.
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Controller: app/controllers/credit_card_controller.rb
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Views: app/views/credit_card/debit.html.erb [...]
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Helper: app/helpers/credit_card_helper.rb
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Test: test/functional/credit_card_controller_test.rb
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Modules Example:
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`./script/generate controller 'admin/credit_card' suspend late_fee`
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Credit card admin controller with URLs /admin/credit_card/suspend.
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Controller: app/controllers/admin/credit_card_controller.rb
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Views: app/views/admin/credit_card/debit.html.erb [...]
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Helper: app/helpers/admin/credit_card_helper.rb
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Test: test/functional/admin/credit_card_controller_test.rb
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------------------------------------------------------
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Ah, the controller generator is expecting parameters in the form of `generate controller ControllerName action1 action2`. Let's make a `Greetings` controller with an action of *hello*, which will say something nice to us.
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[source,shell]
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------------------------------------------------------
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$ ./script/generate controller Greeting hello
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exists app/controllers/
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exists app/helpers/
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create app/views/greeting
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exists test/functional/
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create app/controllers/greetings_controller.rb
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create test/functional/greetings_controller_test.rb
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create app/helpers/greetings_helper.rb
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create app/views/greetings/hello.html.erb
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------------------------------------------------------
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Look there! Now what all did this generate? It looks like it made sure a bunch of directories were in our application, and created a controller file, a functional test file, a helper for the view, and a view file. All from one command!
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