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341 lines
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341 lines
10 KiB
Text
= Action Pack -- From request to response
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Action Pack is a framework for handling and responding to web requests. It
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provides mechanisms for *routing* (mapping request URLs to actions), defining
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*controllers* that implement actions, and generating responses by rendering
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*views*, which are templates of various formats. In short, Action Pack
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provides the view and controller layers in the MVC paradigm.
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It consists of several modules:
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* Action Dispatch, which parses information about the web request, handles
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routing as defined by the user, and does advanced processing related to HTTP
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such as MIME-type negotiation, decoding parameters in POST/PUT bodies,
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handling HTTP caching logic, cookies and sessions.
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* Action Controller, which provides a base controller class that can be
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subclassed to implement filters and actions to handle requests. The result
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of an action is typically content generated from views.
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* Action View, which handles view template lookup and rendering, and provides
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view helpers that assist when building HTML forms, Atom feeds and more.
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Template formats that Action View handles are ERB (embedded Ruby, typically
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used to inline short Ruby snippets inside HTML), and XML Builder.
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With the Ruby on Rails framework, users only directly interface with the
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Action Controller module. Necessary Action Dispatch functionality is activated
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by default and Action View rendering is implicitly triggered by Action
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Controller. However, these modules are designed to function on their own and
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can be used outside of Rails.
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A short rundown of some of the major features:
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* Actions grouped in controller as methods instead of separate command objects
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and can therefore share helper methods
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CustomersController < ActionController::Base
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def show
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@customer = find_customer
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end
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def update
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@customer = find_customer
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if @customer.update_attributes(params[:customer])
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redirect_to :action => "show"
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else
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render :action => "edit"
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end
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end
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private
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def find_customer
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Customer.find params[:id]
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end
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end
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{Learn more}[link:classes/ActionController/Base.html]
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* ERB templates (static content mixed with dynamic output from ruby)
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<% for post in @posts %>
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Title: <%= post.title %>
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<% end %>
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All post titles: <%= @posts.collect{ |p| p.title }.join(", ") %>
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<% unless @person.is_client? %>
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Not for clients to see...
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<% end %>
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{Learn more}[link:classes/ActionView.html]
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* "Builder" templates (great for XML content, like RSS)
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xml.rss("version" => "2.0") do
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xml.channel do
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xml.title(@feed_title)
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xml.link(@url)
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xml.description "Basecamp: Recent items"
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xml.language "en-us"
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xml.ttl "40"
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for item in @recent_items
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xml.item do
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xml.title(item_title(item))
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xml.description(item_description(item))
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xml.pubDate(item_pubDate(item))
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xml.guid(@recent_items.url(item))
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xml.link(@recent_items.url(item))
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end
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end
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end
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end
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{Learn more}[link:classes/ActionView/Base.html]
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* Filters for pre- and post-processing of the response
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class WeblogController < ActionController::Base
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# filters as methods
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before_filter :authenticate, :cache, :audit
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# filter as a proc
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after_filter { |c| c.response.body = Gzip::compress(c.response.body) }
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# class filter
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after_filter LocalizeFilter
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def index
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# Before this action is run, the user will be authenticated, the cache
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# will be examined to see if a valid copy of the results already
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# exists, and the action will be logged for auditing.
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# After this action has run, the output will first be localized then
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# compressed to minimize bandwidth usage
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end
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private
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def authenticate
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# Implement the filter with full access to both request and response
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end
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end
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{Learn more}[link:classes/ActionController/Filters/ClassMethods.html]
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* Helpers for forms, dates, action links, and text
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<%= text_field_tag "post", "title", "size" => 30 %>
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<%= link_to "New post", :controller => "post", :action => "new" %>
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<%= truncate(post.title, :length => 25) %>
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{Learn more}[link:classes/ActionView/Helpers.html]
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* Layout sharing for template reuse
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class WeblogController < ActionController::Base
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layout "weblog_layout"
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def hello_world
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end
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end
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Layout file (called weblog_layout):
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<html><body><%= yield %></body></html>
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Template for hello_world action:
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<h1>Hello world</h1>
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Result of running hello_world action:
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<html><body><h1>Hello world</h1></body></html>
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{Learn more}[link:classes/ActionController/Layout/ClassMethods.html]
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* Routing makes pretty URLs incredibly easy
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match 'clients/:client_name/:project_name/:controller/:action'
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Accessing "/clients/37signals/basecamp/project/index" calls ProjectController#index with
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{ "client_name" => "37signals", "project_name" => "basecamp" } in `params`
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From that action, you can write the redirect in a number of ways:
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redirect_to(:action => "edit") =>
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/clients/37signals/basecamp/project/edit
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redirect_to(:client_name => "nextangle", :project_name => "rails") =>
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/clients/nextangle/rails/project/index
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{Learn more}[link:classes/ActionDispatch/Routing.html]
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* Easy testing of both controller and rendered template through ActionController::TestCase
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class LoginControllerTest < ActionController::TestCase
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def test_failing_authenticate
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process :authenticate, :user_name => "nop", :password => ""
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assert flash.has_key?(:alert)
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assert_redirected_to :action => "index"
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end
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end
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{Learn more}[link:classes/ActionController/TestCase.html]
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* Automated benchmarking and integrated logging
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Started GET "/weblog" for 127.0.0.1 at Fri May 28 00:41:55
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Processing by WeblogController#index as HTML
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Rendered weblog/index.html.erb within layouts/application (25.7ms)
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Completed 200 OK in 29.3ms
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If Active Record is used as the model, you'll have the database debugging
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as well:
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Started POST "/posts" for 127.0.0.1 at Sat Jun 19 14:04:23
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Processing by PostsController#create as HTML
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Parameters: {"post"=>{"title"=>"this is good"}}
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SQL (0.6ms) INSERT INTO posts (title) VALUES('this is good')
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Redirected to http://example.com/posts/5
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Completed 302 Found in 221ms (Views: 215ms | ActiveRecord: 0.6ms)
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You specify a logger through a class method, such as:
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ActionController::Base.logger = Logger.new("Application Log")
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ActionController::Base.logger = Log4r::Logger.new("Application Log")
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* Caching at three levels of granularity (page, action, fragment)
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class WeblogController < ActionController::Base
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caches_page :show
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caches_action :account
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def show
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# the output of the method will be cached as
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# ActionController::Base.page_cache_directory + "/weblog/show/n.html"
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# and the web server will pick it up without even hitting Rails
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end
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def account
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# the output of the method will be cached in the fragment store
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# but Rails is hit to retrieve it, so filters are run
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end
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def update
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List.update(params[:list][:id], params[:list])
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expire_page :action => "show", :id => params[:list][:id]
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expire_action :action => "account"
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redirect_to :action => "show", :id => params[:list][:id]
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end
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end
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{Learn more}[link:classes/ActionController/Caching.html]
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* Powerful debugging mechanism for local requests
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All exceptions raised on actions performed on the request of a local user
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will be presented with a tailored debugging screen that includes exception
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message, stack trace, request parameters, session contents, and the
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half-finished response.
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{Learn more}[link:classes/ActionController/Rescue.html]
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== Simple example (from outside of Rails)
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This example will implement a simple weblog system using inline templates and
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an Active Record model. So let's build that WeblogController with just a few
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methods:
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require 'action_controller'
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require 'post'
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class WeblogController < ActionController::Base
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layout "weblog/layout"
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def index
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@posts = Post.all
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end
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def show
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@post = Post.find(params[:id])
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end
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def new
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@post = Post.new
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end
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def create
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@post = Post.create(params[:post])
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redirect_to :action => "show", :id => @post.id
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end
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end
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WeblogController::Base.view_paths = [ File.dirname(__FILE__) ]
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WeblogController.process_cgi if $0 == __FILE__
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The last two lines are responsible for telling ActionController where the
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template files are located and actually running the controller on a new
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request from the web-server (like to be Apache).
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And the templates look like this:
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weblog/layout.html.erb:
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<html><body>
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<%= yield %>
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</body></html>
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weblog/index.html.erb:
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<% for post in @posts %>
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<p><%= link_to(post.title, :action => "show", :id => post.id) %></p>
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<% end %>
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weblog/show.html.erb:
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<p>
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<b><%= @post.title %></b><br/>
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<b><%= @post.content %></b>
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</p>
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weblog/new.html.erb:
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<%= form "post" %>
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This simple setup will list all the posts in the system on the index page,
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which is called by accessing /weblog/. It uses the form builder for the Active
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Record model to make the new screen, which in turn hands everything over to
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the create action (that's the default target for the form builder when given a
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new model). After creating the post, it'll redirect to the show page using
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an URL such as /weblog/5 (where 5 is the id of the post).
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== Download and installation
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The latest version of Action Pack can be installed with Rubygems:
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% [sudo] gem install actionpack
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Source code can be downloaded as part of the Rails project on GitHub
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* https://github.com/rails/rails/tree/master/actionpack/
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== License
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Action Pack is released under the MIT license.
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== Support
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API documentation is at
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* http://api.rubyonrails.com
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Bug reports and feature requests can be filed with the rest for the Ruby on Rails project here:
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* https://github.com/rails/rails/issues
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