Active Scaffold for Rails: Many to Many
Monday, May 21st, 2007
Yesterday I downloaded Active Scaffold and played around with it. I have to say its pretty nice and really easy to use.
- script/plugin install http://activescaffold.googlecode.com/svn/tags/active_scaffold
- create three tables items, baskets, and baskets_items (see SQL below)
- create a simple layout with two includes
< %= javascript_include_tag :defaults %>
< %= active_scaffold_includes %>
- create two models examples below SQL, Item and Basket and add has_and_belongs_to_many :items to Basket
- create two controllers one for Item and one for Basket and make sure each has the keyword active_scaffold
- navigate to items or baskets and enjoy!
SQL for tables
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS baskets;
CREATE TABLE baskets (
id INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
basket_name VARCHAR(40) NOT NULL COMMENT 'name of the basket, should match event',
PRIMARY KEY (id)
)
ENGINE=INNODB;
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS items;
CREATE TABLE items (
id INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
name VARCHAR(40) NOT NULL COMMENT 'name of the item',
qualities VARCHAR(40) NOT NULL COMMENT 'comma seperated list of qualities we may infer about the person consuming the item',
PRIMARY KEY (id)
)
ENGINE=INNODB;
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS baskets_items;
CREATE TABLE baskets_items (
basket_id INT(11) NOT NULL,
item_id INT(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (basket_id,item_id)
)
ENGINE=INNODB;
Many-to-Many models
class Basket < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :items
end
class Item < ActiveRecord::Base
end
Controllers
class BasketsController < ApplicationController
layout "active_scaffold"
active_scaffold :basket
end
class ItemsController < ApplicationController
layout "active_scaffold"
active_scaffold :items
end
Rails web containers are unstable. There are many choices for a web container webbrick, mongrel, and lighthttp to name a few. None of them work as well as Apache. The servers get wedged. Apache with Fast CGI doens’t seem to work and those who start using it move on to something else.