Archive for the 'rails' Category

Rails url_for and params missery

Posted August 21, 2007 * Comments(2)

Assume you have a params array with the following items:

params[:qry][:name] = ‘jo’
params[:qry][:city] = ”

You would like to build a new URL with the current params appended. Should be as simple as:

url_for( :action => ‘list’, :params => params.merge( { :sort => key, :page => nil } ) )

Well that’s not the case it results in the following URL:

http://localhost/controller/list?qry=namejocity&sort=created_at

Long live Rails! The frustrating part of it, is that it first converts inner Hashmaps to a string. I don’t have a clue why!

The solution, put the following code in your ApplicationHelper. (Is a nice method to have ;-)

#
# Converts the given HASH array like ‘params’ to a flat
# HASH array that’s compatible with url_for and link_to
#
def flatten_param_hash( params )
  found = true

  while found
    found = false
    new_hash = {}

    params.each do |key,value|
      if value.is_a?( Hash )
        found = true
        value.each do |key2,value2|
          new_hash[ key.to_s + ‘[' + key2.to_s + ']‘ ] = value2
        end
      else
        new_hash[ key.to_s ] = value
      end
    end
    params = new_hash
  end
  params
end

Adjust your code to the following

url_for( :action => ‘list’, :params => flatten_param_hash( params.merge( { :sort => key, :page => nil } ) ) )

And voila the result is now a little bit better:

http://localhost/controller/list?qry[name]=jo&qry[city]=&sort=created_at

Restart Webrick when mangling constants with Merge! (of course!)

Posted August 21, 2007 * Comments(0)

Yesterday I’ve encountered the irritating date problem in Rails. Please remember to restart Webrick when you change the date conversion constants or time conversion constants with the ‘merge!’ method:

ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::Date::Conversions::DATE_FORMATS.merge!(
:default => “%d-%m-%Y”
)

On reload it merges the array again… You can never remove the ‘:default’ date with a merge…
*sigh*

This tip can save you a whole lot of time, because reloading doesn’t work

Default Date Format Horrors in Rails

Posted August 20, 2007 * Comments(0)

How nice of rails to make it easy to change the default date format that is used when
showing a date from the database.

ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::Date::Conversions::DATE_FORMATS.merge!(
:default => “%d-%m-%Y”
)

Very easy. Simple writing:

model.date.to_s

outputs the date in my format.

All seems to work well, but a few days later. TODAY!! I found out my application wasn’t saving dates anymore.

The cause:

Rails uses the “:default” date definition to format the date when it builds an SQL statement. Well my MySQL version doesn’t seem to understand this date format.

For now I stay away from the :default date formatter.
I’ve changed my custom date_picker field so now it first formats the date with the date format before showing..

Btw. I found a possible solution and a remark that this has been solved for future rails version. You can find this info at, the rails date kit.

Great method to_json

Posted August 13, 2007 * Comments(0)

A very nice method to convert a Ruby array to Javascript.

print { ‘key1′ =>  ‘value1′, ‘key2′ => [ 1,  2, 3 ] }.to_json
outputs:  { key1: ‘value1′, key1: [ 1, 2, 3 ] }

Rails: unit test fixture_path NameError.

Posted August 5, 2007 * Comments(0)

Last day of my Holiday :(
Trying to write a unit test for my Rails application, I constantly got the error message below:

NameError: undefined local variable or method `fixture_path’ for #<LessonTest:0×9a611f8>
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-1.13.3/lib/action_controller/test_process.rb:452:in `method_missing’
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.15.3/lib/active_record/fixtures.rb:593:in `load_fixtures’
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.15.3/lib/active_record/fixtures.rb:538:in `setup_with_fixtures’
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.15.3/lib/active_record/fixtures.rb:575:in `setup’

Very strange: the Unit Test I’ve written was generated and exactly the same as shown in the example in the “Agile Web Development with Rails 2nd Edition” book.

require File.dirname(__FILE__) + ‘/../test_helper’
class LessonTest &lt; Test::Unit::TestCase
  def test_truth
     assert true
  end
end

Well I found a solution, but I still haven’t found the reason WHY this is happening. You can see this is as a temporary hack.

In your: “/test/test_helper.rb” add the following method:

def fixture_path
  File.dirname(__FILE__) + “/fixtures/”
end

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