Overview

Enables default REST functionality, more than what you get with Rails out-of-the-box, and keeps your code DRY. This means you can write code like this:

class Posts < ApplicationController
  include BTech::Rest 
end

Which would automatically yield the following REST actions:

  • index

  • show

  • new

  • edit

  • create

  • update

  • destroy

How is that for being DRY? Read on to learn more.

License

Copyright © 2008-2009 Brooke Kuhlmann of Berserk Technologies. See the included LICENSE for more info.

History

See the CHANGELOG file for more info.

Requirements

  1. Ruby on Rails (automatically installed for you if you don’t have 2.3.x or higher).

  2. mislav-will_paginate gem (automatically installed for you).

  3. Knowledge of the Representational State Transfer (REST). Download and read RESTful Rails if you need further info.

Installation

Type the following from the command line to install:

  • UNIX: sudo gem install aeonscope-btech_rest

  • Windows: gem install aeonscope-btech_rest

Update your environment.rb file to include the new gem:

  • config.gem “btech_rest”

Type the following from the command line to setup:

  • script/generate rest_setup

Usage

As mentioned in the overview, simply add the following line of code to your controller(s) to make them RESTful:

include BTech::Rest

Example:

class Posts < ApplicationController
  include BTech::Rest 
end

To customize the RESTful behavior of your controller, use any combination of these three macros:

  • belongs_to - Enables resource nesting where a controller can belong to a parent controller. This behavior is similar to the ActiveRecord belongs_to macro.

  • resource_options - Allows you to customize the default behavior of your controller(s). There is a lot you can do with this, read the code documentation for more info.

  • disabled_actions - Allows you to disable any of the default REST actions. Follow the link to learn more.

Example:

class Comments < ApplicationController
  include BTech::Rest
  belongs_to :posts
  resource_options :label => "My Wicked Comments"
  disabled_actions :show, :destroy
end

Here is the breakdown, line-by-line, of the example shown above:

  1. Enables restful behavior.

  2. Identifies the controller as a nested resource of posts.

  3. Instead of using the default label “Comments”, a customized label of “My Wicked Comments” is used instead.

  4. The “show” and “destroy” actions are disabled which means only the following actions will work: index, new, edit, create, and update.

Using the post and comment controller relationship as defined above, we can break this relationship down even further. The post (parent) resource would have the following values (in this case, all default values):

  • parent_key = N/A

  • parent_value = N/A

  • parent_resource_method = N/A

  • name = “posts”

  • label = “Posts”

  • controller = PostsController

  • model = Post

  • record = #<Post id: 1, label: “Test”, content: “Test”, created_at: “2008-10-31 23:59:28”, updated_at: “2008-10-31 23:59:28”>

  • namespaces = []

  • show_partial = “/posts/show”

  • new_or_edit_partial = “/posts/new_or_edit”

The comment (child) resource would have the following values:

  • parent_key = post_id

  • parent_value = 1

  • parent_resource_method = N/A

  • name = “comments”

  • label = “My Wicked Comments”

  • controller = CommentsController

  • model = Comment

  • record = #<Post id: 1, post_id: nil, label: “Test”, content: “Test”, created_at: “2008-10-31 23:59:28”, updated_at: “2008-10-31 23:59:28”>

  • namespaces = []

  • show_partial = “/comments/show”

  • new_or_edit_partial = “/comments/new_or_edit”

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