# Documenting Models

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/documenting-models/170424>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [June 17, 2009, 2:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/documenting-models/170424 "2009-06-17T14:33:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![andy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/aeb1de/32.png) [@andy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/andy)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 2:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/documenting-models/170424/1 "2009-06-17T14:33:36Z")

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All,

I’m trying to do some documentation on the models for our interfaces  
team. I espcially need them to be able to see the relationships  
belongs\_to and validations. However, I must be stupid with rdoc  
because I can’t seem to get those two things in the generated  
documentation.

Ideas?

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**Author:** ![andy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/aeb1de/32.png) [@andy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/andy)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 2:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/documenting-models/170424/2 "2009-06-17T14:55:19Z")

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On 16 Jun 2009, at 21:24, Andy wrote:

> I’m trying to do some documentation on the models for our interfaces  
> team. I espcially need them to be able to see the relationships  
> belongs\_to and validations. However, I must be stupid with rdoc  
> because I can’t seem to get those two things in the generated  
> documentation.

Maybe RailRoad can help you out here: [http://railroad.rubyforge.org/](http://railroad.rubyforge.org/)

Best regards

Peter De Berdt

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**Author:** ![andy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/aeb1de/32.png) [@andy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/andy)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 4:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/documenting-models/170424/3 "2009-06-17T16:11:02Z")

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RailRoad doesn’t work with 2.3.2 and doesn’t appear to be actively  
maintained.

/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.2/lib/active\_record/  
reflection.rb:316:in `derive_class_name': You have a nil object when you didn't expect it! (NoMethodError) The error occurred while evaluating nil.class_name from /usr/lib/ ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.2/lib/active_record/reflection.rb: 112:in`class\_name’  
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/railroad-0.5.0/lib/railroad/  
models\_diagram.rb:134:in `process_association' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/railroad-0.5.0/lib/railroad/ models_diagram.rb:102:in`process\_class’  
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/railroad-0.5.0/lib/railroad/  
models\_diagram.rb:101:in `each' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/railroad-0.5.0/lib/railroad/ models_diagram.rb:101:in`process\_class’  
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/railroad-0.5.0/lib/railroad/  
models\_diagram.rb:27:in `generate' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/railroad-0.5.0/lib/railroad/ models_diagram.rb:26:in`each’  
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/railroad-0.5.0/lib/railroad/  
models\_diagram.rb:26:in `generate' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/railroad-0.5.0/bin/railroad: 47 from /usr/bin/railroad:19:in`load’  
from /usr/bin/railroad:19