![PATHS IN RAILS
ENGINES
rails console
ruby-1.8.7-p299 > e = Rails.application.railties.engines.last
ruby-1.8.7-p299 > e.config.paths.app
a => #<Rails::Paths::Path:0x103bf7058 @eager_load=true, @root=#<Rails::Paths::Root:
0x103c02958 @all_paths=[#<Rails::Paths::Path:0x103bf7058 ...>, …, @paths=["app"]>
ruby-1.8.7-p299 > e.class.name
=> "InklingContent::Engine" #helps to give your Railtie an informative namespace](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/rails3enginestalk-100827195720-phpapp02/85/How-to-set-up-and-test-a-Rails-3-Engine-13-320.jpg)
How to set up and test a Rails 3 Engine
- 1. HOW TO SETUP AND TEST RAILS 3 ENGINES. Nicholas Faiz, Tree Falling In The Woods, Pty Ltd.
- 2. INTRO A quick introduction to Engines in Rails 3, including a demo of how to set one up and test it. Background: I've been working on a Rails 3 engine project since February or so. It might help if I share what I've encountered so far. Rails 3 Engines are new. Rails 3 RC 2 only released a few days ago.
- 3. INTRO 2 Finding information on how to set up an Engine in Rails 3 has been difficult. Useful blogs: http:// www.themodestrubyist.com - by Jordan West. 4 posts about engines. Cesario: http://www.dev-fr.com/archives/ 2010/04/07/rails-3-railties-and-engines/
- 4. STORY OF ENGINES SO FAR Engines before Rails 2.3 Engines Incorporated 2.3 Engines revamped in Rails 3
- 5. STORY OF ENGINES ... 2 How were they revamped in Rails 3? Merb influence of decoupling. 2009 Merb merged with Rails. Merb influence r.e. decoupled dependencies! e.g. Should be able to use whichever ORM in your MVC. In Rails 3 engines revamped, now inherit from Rails::Railtie (See the Merb influence)
- 6. WHAT ARE RAILTIES? Railties are a central concept to Rails 3. They decouple components from each other. See http://railsapi.com/doc/rails-v3.0.0.beta.3/ classes/Rails/Railtie.html All major aspects of the Rails Framework are now assembled into a larger system via a collection of Railties.
- 7. WHAT ARE RAILTIES? 2 ActionController::Railtie < Rails::Railtie, ActionView::Railtie < Rails::Railtie, etc. Railties carry initializers, letting you configure how a Rails application is bootstrapped.’ initializer "configure something" {|app| config.something()}
- 8. WHAT ARE ENGINES? Rails 3: Engines *are* Railties, well, subclasses of them. Rails::Engine < Rails::Railties In fact, every Rails application *is* an engine, well, a subclass ... Rails::Application < Rails::Engine
- 9. WHAT ARE ENGINES? Only touching upon functionality in this presentation. Hosting applications can use them, or override them if they want to change things. Most known Rails 3 engine at the moment - Devise: http://github.com/plataformatec/devise
- 10. CONFIGURE, BUNDLE, TEST Engines are a bit more than just a Rails application, though. More to it than the API. You have to know how to configure, bundle, and test it. You bundle a Rails engine, in its own gem, to reuse within another Rails application. First understand how an engine is accessed and used by a Rails application. Standard Rails app. paths available in the engine ...
- 11. ENGINE PATHS class MyEngine < Rails::Engine paths.app = "app" paths.app.controllers = "app/controllers" paths.app.helpers = "app/helpers" paths.app.models = "app/models" paths.app.metals = "app/metal" paths.app.views = "app/views" paths.lib = "lib" paths.lib.tasks = "lib/tasks" paths.config = "config" paths.config.initializers = "config/initializers" paths.config.locales = "config/locales" paths.config.routes = "config/routes.rb" end
- 12. ENGINES INSIDE THE HOST APP. All of this information is addressable via the Rails object. ruby-1.8.7-p299 > Rails.application.railties.engines Holds an array of engine objects.
- 13. PATHS IN RAILS ENGINES rails console ruby-1.8.7-p299 > e = Rails.application.railties.engines.last ruby-1.8.7-p299 > e.config.paths.app a => #<Rails::Paths::Path:0x103bf7058 @eager_load=true, @root=#<Rails::Paths::Root: 0x103c02958 @all_paths=[#<Rails::Paths::Path:0x103bf7058 ...>, …, @paths=["app"]> ruby-1.8.7-p299 > e.class.name => "InklingContent::Engine" #helps to give your Railtie an informative namespace
- 14. FINDING AN ENGINE BLUEPRINT I began working on my own engines and made headway in some areas but not others. I decided that I wanted a simple blueprint of how an engine should look. Because engines are new, there aren't established practices for setting them up and testing them. I've come up with my own, which seem like common sense, but took some thought.
- 15. TOMMY THE RAILS 3 ENGINE! So I created Tommy, a simple application with a picture of Tommy the Tank engine repeating a message held in sqlite.
- 16. HOW IS SOMETHING SO SIMPLE HELPFUL? Demonstrates some basic concepts. Some projects would actually copy their static files - javascripts, partials, etc. - *over* the hosting application. (e.g. BrowserCMS), in the Rails 2.x days. I needed to prove how sharing assets was done without this intrusion in Rails 3.
- 17. IN DEMO LOOK FOR ... The Railties file (the engine). Generators for migrations. How to share static assets (like images, stylesheets, javascript files, etc.), from the engine into the host engine. How to share rake tasks. How to configure rspec and cucumber in an engine.
- 18. TOMMY THE RAILS 3 ENGINE DEMO http://github.com/biv/tommy
- 19. SUMMATION An engine can't be used without a functioning Rails app.. I find it easiest to nest a Rails app beneath the top directory. Tests for the engine can be created at the top level directory of the engine, but symlinked into the test app..
- 20. SUMMATION 2 Rails 3 engines are new. I haven’t heard many stories, yet, about how they perform in production settings.
- 21. CONTACT ME TO DISCUSS ENGINES I’m basing a lot of work in 2010/2011 on the Engine structure. I’m happy to discuss them: biv/brain_in_vat on #roro freenode http://twitter.com/nicholasf