Some basic RoR questions

Rails
1

Hey all

I have a main_controller which has the basic scaffold methods. It
operates on a single table, entries and on the entry.rb model. This is
its migration file,

def self.up
create_table :entries do |t|
t.column :title, :string
t.column :created, :timestamp
end
end

When I scaffolded it RoR automatically created a new.rhtml which
inserted both the title and the timestamp via a form. Now I’ve removed
the timestamp part from the form because I want each entry to be
persisted with the current date and time.

My main_controller which handles the persistance has the following new
and create methods

def new
@entry = Entry.new
end

def create
@entry = Entry.new(params[:entry])
if @entry.save
flash[:notice] = ‘Entry was successfully created.’
redirect_to :action => ‘list’
else
render :action => ‘new’
end
end

Now what I don’t understand is where in the code the actual form data is
saved, I’m from a Java background so this is all very new to me. First
off, there is no initialize method for entry.rb, so how is the title
field for the object set? Also, there are no fields declared in
entry.rb, so how/where can I set the default timestamp for each entry.rb
object to the current date/time?

This is entry.rb

class Entry < ActiveRecord::Base

validates_presence_of :created

end

2

hi, the initialize is when you do this

@entry = Entry.new

that new ‘object’ @entry then gets passed to your view called
‘new’.rhtml.

‘if @entry.save’ is short for saying ‘save @entry if @entry can be
saved’…else redisplay the new.rhtml.

entry model is the singular term for the entries table. takes awhile to
get used to but starts to make sense eventually.

i came from a c++ and java background so getting used to things that
magically happens to awhile for me to get used to.

Nima wrote:

Hey all

I have a main_controller which has the basic scaffold methods. It
operates on a single table, entries and on the entry.rb model. This is
its migration file,

def self.up
create_table :entries do |t|
t.column :title, :string
t.column :created, :timestamp
end
end

When I scaffolded it RoR automatically created a new.rhtml which
inserted both the title and the timestamp via a form. Now I’ve removed
the timestamp part from the form because I want each entry to be
persisted with the current date and time.

My main_controller which handles the persistance has the following new
and create methods

def new
@entry = Entry.new
end

def create
@entry = Entry.new(params[:entry])
if @entry.save
flash[:notice] = ‘Entry was successfully created.’
redirect_to :action => ‘list’
else
render :action => ‘new’
end
end

Now what I don’t understand is where in the code the actual form data is
saved, I’m from a Java background so this is all very new to me. First
off, there is no initialize method for entry.rb, so how is the title
field for the object set? Also, there are no fields declared in
entry.rb, so how/where can I set the default timestamp for each entry.rb
object to the current date/time?

This is entry.rb

class Entry < ActiveRecord::Base

validates_presence_of :created

end

3

Nima wrote:

Now what I don’t understand is where in the code the actual form data is
saved, I’m from a Java background so this is all very new to me. First
off, there is no initialize method for entry.rb, so how is the title
field for the object set?

There actually is an initialize method for your Entry class; it’s
inherited from ActiveRecord::Base rather than being declared in
entry.rb. The first time your application accesses your Entry model,
ActiveRecord issues a database call to read the database structure of
your “entries” table. From that, it determines what columns the table
has, and therefore, what attributes (fields) the object will have.
(These attributes are actually stored in a hash instance variable called
@attributes.)

Also, there are no fields declared in
entry.rb, so how/where can I set the default timestamp for each entry.rb
object to the current date/time?

In general, you can declare a “before_save” callback method in your
model to modify or set some data before a record is saved. In this
particular case, though, the simplest way is to simply rename your
column to “created_at”. ActiveRecord will automatically recognize this
as a reserved or “magic” column name, and will set it to the current
timestamp whenever a record is created, without any other programming on
your part.