Foreword xi
Preface xiii
Getting Started 1
Joining the Rails Community 2
Finding Documentation 4
Installing MySQL 5
Installing PostgreSQL 8
Installing Rails 10
Fixing Ruby and Installing Rails on OS X 10.4 Tiger 12
Running Rails in OS X with Locomotive 14
Running Rails in Windows with Instant Rails 16
Updating Rails with RubyGems 18
Getting Your Rails Project into Subversion 19
Rails Development 23
Creating a Rails Project 23
Jump-Starting Development with Scaffolding 26
Speeding Up Rails Development with Mongrel 28
Enhancing Windows Development with Cygwin 31
Understanding Pluralization Patterns in Rails 32
Developing Rails in OS X with TextMate 36
Cross-Platform Developing with RadRails 37
Installing and Running Edge Rails 38
Setting Up Passwordless Authentication with SSH 41
Generating RDoc for Your Rails Application 42
Creating Full-Featured CRUD Applications with Streamlined 45
Active Record 49
Setting Up a Relational Database to Use with Rails 50
Programmatically Defining Database Schema 54
Developing Your Database with Migrations 56
Modeling a Database with Active Record 60
Inspecting Model Relationships from the Rails Console 63
Accessing Your Data via Active Record 66
Retrieving Records with find 68
Iterating Over an Active Record Result Set 71
Retrieving Data Efficiently with Eager Loading 74
Updating an Active Record Object 77
Enforcing Data Integrity with Active Record Validations 81
Executing Custom Queries with find_by_sql 84
Protecting Against Race Conditions with Transactions 88
Adding Sort Capabilities to a Model with acts_as_list 92
Performing a Task Whenever a Model Object Is Created 97
Modeling a Threaded Forum with acts_as_nested_set 100
Creating a Directory of Nested Topics with acts_as_tree 104
Avoiding Race Conditions with Optimistic Locking 107
Handling Tables with Legacy Naming Conventions 109
Automating Record Timestamping 111
Factoring Out Common Relationships with Polymorphic Associations 112
Mixing Join Models and Polymorphism for Flexible Data Modeling 115
Action Controller 121
Accessing Form Data from a Controller 122
Changing an Application's Default Page 125
Clarifying Your Code with Named Routes 126
Configuring Customized Routing Behavior 127
Displaying Alert Messages with Flash 129
Extending the Life of a Flash Message 131
Following Actions with Redirects 133
Generating URLs Dynamically 134
Inspecting Requests with Filters 135
Logging with Filters 137
Rendering Actions 140
Restricting Access to Controller Methods 141
Sending Files or Data Streams to the Browser 142
Storing Session Information in a Database 144
Tracking Information with Sessions 146
Using Filters for Authentication 149
Action View 155
Simplifying Templates with View Helpers 156
Displaying Large Datasets with Pagination 158
Creating a Sticky Select List 161
Editing Many-to-Many Relationships with Multiselect Lists 163
Factoring Out Common Display Code with Layouts 166
Defining a Default Application Layout 169
Generating XML with Builder Templates 170
Generating RSS Feeds from Active Record Data 172
Reusing Page Elements with Partials 174
Processing Dynamically Created Input Fields 177
Customizing the Behavior of Standard Helpers 181
Creating a Web Form with Form Helpers 183
Formatting Dates, Times, and Currencies 187
Personalizing User Profiles with Gravatars 190
Avoiding Harmful Code in Views with Liquid Templates 191
Globalizing Your Rails Application 195
Restful Development 201
Creating Nested Resources 204
Supporting Alternative Data Formats by MIME Type 208
Modeling Relationships Restfully with Join Models 210
Moving Beyond Simple CRUD with Restful Resources 213
Consuming Complex Nested Rest Resources 217
Developing Your Rails Applications Restfully 220
Rails Application Testing 225
Centralizing the Creation of Objects Common to Test Cases 226
Creating Fixtures for Many-to-Many Associations 227
Importing Test Data with CSV Fixtures 229
Including Dynamic Data in Fixtures with ERb 232
Initializing a Test Database 233
Interactively Testing Controllers from the Rails Console 235
Interpreting the Output of Test::Unit 237
Loading Test Data with YAML Fixtures 238
Monitoring Test Coverage with rake stats 240
Running Tests with Rake 241
Speeding Up Tests with Transactional Fixtures 242
Testing Across Controllers with Integration Tests 244
Testing Controllers with Functional Tests 247
Examining the Contents of Cookie 250
Testing Custom and Named Routes 253
Testing HTTP Requests with Response-Related Assertions 255
Testing a Model with Unit Tests 256
Unit Testing Model Validations 259
Verifying DOM Structure with Tag-Related Assertions 261
Writing Custom Assertions 264
Testing File Upload 265
Modifying the Default Behavior of a Class for Testing by Using Mocks 269
Improving Feedback by Running Tests Continuously 271
Analyzing Code Coverage with Rcov 272
JavaScript and Ajax 277
Adding DOM Elements to a Page 278
Creating a Custom Report with Drag and Drop 281
Dynamically Adding Items to a Select List 286
Monitoring the Content Length of a Textarea 288
Updating Page Elements with RJS Templates 292
Inserting JavaScript into Templates 295
Letting a User Reorder a List 298
Autocompleting a Text Field 302
Searching for and Highlighting Text Dynamically 304
Enhancing the User Interface with Visual Effects 308
Implementing a Live Search 311
Editing Fields in Place 315
Creatingan Ajax Progress Indicator 317
Action Mailer 321
Configuring Rails to Send Email 322
Creating a Custom Mailer Class with the Mailer Generator 323
Formatting Email Messages Using Templates 325
Attaching Files to Email Messages 326
Sending Email from a Rails Application 327
Receiving Email with Action Mailer 328
Debugging Rails Applications 333
Exploring Rails from the Console 334
Fixing Bugs at the Source with Ruby -cw 336
Debugging Your Application in Real Time with the breakpointer 338
Logging with the Built-in Rails Logger Class 342
Writing Debugging Information to a File 344
Emailing Application Exceptions 346
Outputting Environment Information in Views 350
Displaying Object Contents with Exceptions 352
Filtering Development Logs in Real Time 353
Debugging HTTP Communication with Firefox Extensions 355
Debugging Your JavaScript in Real Time with the JavaScript Shell 356
Debugging Your Code Interactively with ruby-debug 360
Security 365
Hardening Your Systems with Strong Passwords 365
Protecting Queries from SQL Injection 368
Guarding Against Cross-Site Scripting Attacks 369
Restricting Access to Public Methods or Actions 371
Securing Your Server by Closing Unnecessary Ports 373
Performance 377
Measuring Web Server Performance with Httperf 378
Benchmarking Portions of Your Application Code 381
Improving Performance by Caching Static Pages 382
Expiring Cached Pages 385
Mixing Static and Dynamic Content with Fragment Caching 388
Filtering Cached Pages with Action Caching 391
Speeding Up Data Access Times with memcached 392
Increasing Performance by Caching Post-Processed Content 395
Hosting and Deployment 399
Hosting Rails Using Apache 1.3 and mod_fastcgi 400
Managing Multiple Mongrel Processes with mongrel_cluster 402
Hosting Rails with Apache 2.2, mod_proxy_balancer, and Mongrel 405
Deploying Rails with Pound in Front of Mongrel, Lighttpd, and Apache 409
Customizing Pound's Logging with cronolog 413
Configuring Pound with SSL Support 416
Simple Load Balancing with Pen 418
Deploying Your Rails Project with Capistrano 419
Deploying Your Application to Multiple Environments with Capistrano 423
Deploying with Capistrano When You Can't Access Subversion 425
Deploying with Capistrano and mongrel_cluster 427
Disabling Your Web Site During Maintenance 429
Writing Custom Capistrano Tasks 432
Cleaning Up Residual Session Records 436
Extending Rails with Plug-ins 439
Finding Third-Party Plug-ins 440
Installing Plug-ins 441
Manipulating Record Versions with acts_as_versioned 443
Building Authentication with acts_as_authenticated 446
Simplifying Folksonomy with the acts_as_taggable 450
Extending Active Record with acts_as 455
Adding View Helpers to Rails as Plug-ins 460
Uploading Files with file_column 462
Uploading Files with acts_as_attachment 465
Disabling Records Instead of Deleting Them with acts_as_paranoid 469
Adding More Elaborate Authentication Using the Login Engine 471
Graphics 475
Installing RMagick for Image Processing 475
Uploading Images to a Database 480
Serving Images Directly from a Database 484
Creating Resized Thumbnails with RMagick 485
Generating PDF Documents 488
Visually Displaying Data with Gruff 490
Creating Small, Informative Graphs with Sparklines 493
Migrating to Rails 1.2 497