New to RoR. New project with a legacy database and php service. Any tips?

Rails
1

Hi All,

I’m about to jump into Ruby on Rails for a new project, but wanted to
see if anyone has some tips for my specific situation:

Basically I already have a web service in PHP that communicates with a
non-web based application to sync data between instances, storing the
data in MySQL. This is all working great, and there is no need to
change it.

I now wish to add a web based front end to this system, and am looking
at RoR to do it.

So there’s not much legacy code (since there is no web site right
now), but there is a legacy database, and a few methods that I may
need to expose to Ruby from PHP.

Regarding the legacy database:
-Any pointers on reconfiguring an existing database to use rails? Do
I have to rename all the primary keys to ‘id’ ?
-Should I re-create the structure in migrations, or just manage
things the old way (i.e. big list of sql update statements)

The web site will be basic CRUD, but with one exception:

I can’t just use the standard “Update” functions of RoR (i.e. the ones
that map to an UPDATE SQL statement). The design is this: I never
update any rows on this database, rather I insert the record again,
and mark the old one as “old”. This is done to give users an
unlimited undo function (think a little like how Wordpress does it)

  • Do you have any suggestions to get me started on overriding the
    model’s standard update function to instead do this special handling?

  • I may also need to override the “Read” function to use not the
    primary key, but different unique key I give the record, one that
    doesn’t change between revisions (and also to only return the newest
    version). Will this be difficult?

Finally, what is the simplest way to interface with an internal PHP
service? Do a JSON formatted http://localhost request and just get
back the array of data?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,
Will

2

William D. wrote in post #955352:

Hi All,

I’m about to jump into Ruby on Rails for a new project, but wanted to
see if anyone has some tips for my specific situation:

Basically I already have a web service in PHP that communicates with a
non-web based application to sync data between instances, storing the
data in MySQL. This is all working great, and there is no need to
change it.

I now wish to add a web based front end to this system, and am looking
at RoR to do it.

I assume you’re looking to have Rails work with that MySQL database? If
so, then any concerns about php and the sync’ing service are moot.

Regarding the legacy database:
-Any pointers on reconfiguring an existing database to use rails? Do
I have to rename all the primary keys to ‘id’ ?
-Should I re-create the structure in migrations, or just manage
things the old way (i.e. big list of sql update statements)

You don’t have to add an id column to all your tables, but it will
definitely make life easier for creating your Rails app if you do,
otherwise just be sure to read up on your ActiveRecord methods. Using
something other than id as the key is definitely supported.

The web site will be basic CRUD, but with one exception:

I can’t just use the standard “Update” functions of RoR (i.e. the ones
that map to an UPDATE SQL statement). The design is this: I never
update any rows on this database, rather I insert the record again,
and mark the old one as “old”. This is done to give users an
unlimited undo function (think a little like how Wordpress does it)

  • Do you have any suggestions to get me started on overriding the
    model’s standard update function to instead do this special handling?

Might be a couple of ways to do this, but it kind of depends on how you
mark a record as ‘old’ - in the past I’ve used a ‘valid_until’ field.
Any current, valid records just don’t have an expiration date, expiring
a record could be done by setting that value just before creating the
new record (before_save callback?).

  • I may also need to override the “Read” function to use not the
    primary key, but different unique key I give the record, one that
    doesn’t change between revisions (and also to only return the newest
    version). Will this be difficult?

Not hard, see ActiveRecord mentioned above.

Finally, what is the simplest way to interface with an internal PHP
service? Do a JSON formatted http://localhost request and just get
back the array of data?

Your Rails app will have to post requests in a format understood by the
php service, and deal with whatever it gets back, be that Json or POX or
something else.

3

William D. wrote in post #955352:

Hi All,

I’m about to jump into Ruby on Rails for a new project, but wanted to
see if anyone has some tips for my specific situation:

Have you ever used Rails before? If not, then I advise you not to do
this as your very first Rails project. Learn about how Rails works by
default before you try to use it in a situation like this.

Basically I already have a web service in PHP that communicates with a
non-web based application to sync data between instances, storing the
data in MySQL. This is all working great, and there is no need to
change it.

Your phrasing, if I am understanding it correctly, betrays an assumption
that may or may not be valid. “There is no need to change it” may be
true of the system as it currently stands, but you are adding a new
component to the system. Thus, there may soon be a need to change the
existing parts – or there may not. Don’t lock yourself into one or the
other view a priori.

I now wish to add a web based front end to this system, and am looking
at RoR to do it.

So there’s not much legacy code (since there is no web site right
now), but there is a legacy database, and a few methods that I may
need to expose to Ruby from PHP.

Will the other application still be updating this DB, or will the Rails
app now be the only thing touching it?

Regarding the legacy database:
-Any pointers on reconfiguring an existing database to use rails?

What does it look like now?

Do
I have to rename all the primary keys to ‘id’ ?

No. You can override most of Rails’ defaults if you really want to.
Over time, though, you might want to get more Railsy.

-Should I re-create the structure in migrations, or just manage
things the old way (i.e. big list of sql update statements)

Neither! Use rake db:schema:dump to get the current structure into your
db/schema.rb file (and of course, put that in version control); then do
all further DB changes with migrations.

The web site will be basic CRUD, but with one exception:

I can’t just use the standard “Update” functions of RoR (i.e. the ones
that map to an UPDATE SQL statement).

Yes you can. Read on. Again, you are ruling things out a priori that
may in fact be useful.

The design is this: I never
update any rows on this database, rather I insert the record again,
and mark the old one as “old”. This is done to give users an
unlimited undo function (think a little like how Wordpress does it)

  • Do you have any suggestions to get me started on overriding the
    model’s standard update function to instead do this special handling?

  • I may also need to override the “Read” function to use not the
    primary key, but different unique key I give the record, one that
    doesn’t change between revisions (and also to only return the newest
    version). Will this be difficult?

There are several Rails plugins that already do this (acts_as_versioned,
vestal_versions, etc.). Check them out.

Finally, what is the simplest way to interface with an internal PHP
service? Do a JSON formatted http://localhost request and just get
back the array of data?

ActiveResource, probably.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,
Will

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]