Option 1: GitHub
$ git clone git://github.com/1602/express-on-railway.git
$ cd express-on-railway
$ git submodule update --init
$ sudo npm install -g
$ cd -
$ rm -rf express-on-railway
Option 2: npm
$ sudo npm install railway -g
# initialize
$ railway init blog && cd blog
$ npm install -l
# generate scaffold
$ railway generate crud post title content published:boolean
# run server on port 3000
$ railway s 3000
# visit appp
$ open http://localhost:3000/posts
NOTE: Make sure mongodb server runs
Usage: railway command [argument(s)]
Commands:
h, help Display usage information
i, init Initialize railway app
g, generate [smth] Generate something awesome
r, routes [filter] Display application routes
c, console Debug console
s, server [port] Run railway server
x, install gitUrl [extName] Install railway eXtension
railway init [appname][ key(s)] keys: --coffee # Default: no coffee by default --tpl jade|ejs # Default: ejs --db redis|mongoose|riak # Default: mongoose
railway generate smth - smth = generator name (controller, model, scaffold, ...can be extended via plugins)
builtin generator: model
railway g model user email password approved:boolean # generate User model with fields user, password: String, approved: Boolean
railway g post title content --coffee # generate Post model in coffee script syntax
builtin generator: scaffold (crud)
railway g scaffold todo title done:boolean --coffee # generate scaffold for Todo model (title: String, done: Boolean)
builtin generator: controller
railway g controller sessions new create destroy # generate sessions controller with actions and views
railway server 8000 or PORT=8000 node server - run server on port 8000
railway c - run debugging console (see details below)
railway r - print routes map (see details below)
On initialization rails-like directories tree generated, like that:
.
|-- app
| |-- controllers
| | |-- admin
| | | |-- categories_controller.js
| | | |-- posts_controller.js
| | | `-- tags_controller.js
| | |-- comments_controller.js
| | `-- posts_controller.js
| |-- models
| | |-- category.js
| | |-- post.js
| | `-- tag.js
| |-- views
| | |-- admin
| | | `-- posts
| | | |-- edit.ejs
| | | |-- index.ejs
| | | |-- new.ejs
| | |-- layouts
| | | `-- application_layout.ejs
| | |-- partials
| | `-- posts
| | |-- index.ejs
| | `-- show.ejs
| `-- helpers
| |-- admin
| | |-- posts_helper.js
| | `-- tags_helper.js
| `-- posts_helper.js
`-- config
|-- database.json
|-- routes.js
|-- tsl.cert
`-- tsl.key
Just place your key and cert into config directory, railway will use it.
Default names for keys are tsl.key and tsl.cert, but you can store in in another place, in that case just pass filenames to createServer function:
server.js
require('railway').createServer({key: '/tmp/key.pem', cert: '/tmp/cert.pem'});
Few helpful commands:
# generate private key
openssl genrsa -out config/tsl.key
# generate cert
openssl req -new -x509 -key config/tsl.key -out config/tsl.cert -days 1095 -batch
Now we do not have to tediously describe REST rotes for each resource, enough to write in config/routes.js code like this:
exports.routes = function (map) {
map.resources('posts', function (post) {
post.resources('comments');
});
};
instead of:
var ctl = require('./lib/posts_controller.js');
app.get('/posts/new.:format?', ctl.new);
app.get('/posts.:format?', ctl.index);
app.post('/posts.:format?', ctl.create);
app.get('/posts/:id.:format?', ctl.show);
app.put('/posts/:id.:format?', ctl.update);
app.delete('/posts/:id.:format?', ctl.destroy);
app.get('/posts/:id/edit.:format?', ctl.edit);
var com_ctl = require('./lib/comments_controller.js');
app.get('/posts/:post_id/comments/new.:format?', com_ctl.new);
app.get('/posts/:post_id/comments.:format?', com_ctl.index);
app.post('/posts/:post_id/comments.:format?', com_ctl.create);
app.get('/posts/:post_id/comments/:id.:format?', com_ctl.show);
app.put('/posts/:post_id/comments/:id.:format?', com_ctl.update);
app.delete('/posts/:post_id/comments/:id.:format?', com_ctl.destroy);
app.get('/posts/:post_id/comments/:id/edit.:format?', com_ctl.edit);
and you can more finely tune the resources to specify certain actions, middleware, and other. Here example routes of my blog:
exports.routes = function (map) {
map.get('/', 'posts#index');
map.get(':id', 'posts#show');
map.get('sitemap.txt', 'posts#map');
map.namespace('admin', function (admin) {
admin.resources('posts', {middleware: basic_auth, except: ['show']}, function (post) {
post.resources('comments');
post.get('likes', 'posts#likes')
});
});
};
for debugging routes described in config/routes.js you can use railway routes command:
$ railway routes
GET / posts#index
GET /:id posts#show
sitemap.txt GET /sitemap.txt posts#map
admin_posts GET /admin/posts.:format? admin/posts#index
admin_posts POST /admin/posts.:format? admin/posts#create
new_admin_post GET /admin/posts/new.:format? admin/posts#new
edit_admin_post GET /admin/posts/:id/edit.:format? admin/posts#edit
admin_post DELETE /admin/posts/:id.:format? admin/posts#destroy
admin_post PUT /admin/posts/:id.:format? admin/posts#update
likes_admin_post PUT /admin/posts/:id/likes.:format? admin/posts#likes
Filter by method:
$ railway routes GET
GET / posts#index
GET /:id posts#show
sitemap.txt GET /sitemap.txt posts#map
admin_posts GET /admin/posts.:format? admin/posts#index
new_admin_post GET /admin/posts/new.:format? admin/posts#new
edit_admin_post GET /admin/posts/:id/edit.:format? admin/posts#edit
Filter by helper name:
$ railway routes _admin
new_admin_post GET /admin/posts/new.:format? admin/posts#new
edit_admin_post GET /admin/posts/:id/edit.:format? admin/posts#edit
likes_admin_post PUT /admin/posts/:id/likes.:format? admin/posts#likes
In addition to regular rails helpers link_to, form_for, javascript_include_tag, form_for, etc. there are also helpers for routing: each route generates a helper method that can be invoked in a view:
<%- link_to("New post", new_admin_post) %>
<%- link_to("New post", edit_admin_post(post)) %>
generates output:
<a href="/admin/posts/new">New post</a>
<a href="/admin/posts/10/edit">New post</a>
The controller is a module containing the declaration of actions such as this:
beforeFilter(loadPost, {only: ['edit', 'update', 'destroy']});
action('index', function () {
Post.allInstances({order: 'created_at'}, function (collection) {
render({ posts: collection });
});
});
action('create', function () {
Post.create(req.body, function () {
redirect(path_to.admin_posts);
});
});
action('new', function () {
render({ post: new Post });
});
action('edit', function () {
render({ post: request.post });
});
action('update', function () {
request.post.save(req.locale, req.body, function () {
redirect(path_to.admin_posts);
});
});
function loadPost () {
Post.find(req.params.id, function () {
request.post = this;
next();
});
}
Railway offers several built-in generators: for a model, controller and for initialization. Can be invoked as follows:
railway generate [what] [params]
what can be model, controller or scaffold. Example of controller generation:
$ railway generate controller admin/posts index new edit update
exists app/
exists app/controllers/
create app/controllers/admin/
create app/controllers/admin/posts_controller.js
create app/helpers/
create app/helpers/admin/
create app/helpers/admin/posts_helper.js
exists app/views/
create app/views/admin/
create app/views/admin/posts/
create app/views/admin/posts/index.ejs
create app/views/admin/posts/new.ejs
create app/views/admin/posts/edit.ejs
create app/views/admin/posts/update.ejs
Currently it generates only *.ejs views
At the moment I store objects in redis data store. For that purpose I have
written simple driver, that adds persistence-related methods to models described
in app/models/*.js. I can work with models the following way:
File app/models/post.js:
var Post = describe('Post', function () {
property('title', String);
property('preview', String);
property('content', String);
property('tags', Array);
});
In controller:
// create new object
Post.create(params, function () {
console.log(post.id);
console.log(post.created_at);
});
// find by primary key
Post.find(params.id, function (err) {
if (!err) {
this.update_attributes({
title: 'Hello world',
preview: 'asda',
tags: 'world,hello,example,redis-mapper,find'.split(',')
});
}
});
// collection
Post.allInstances(function (posts) {
posts.forEach(function (post) {
console.log(post.title);
});
});
To run REPL console use command
railway console
or it's shortcut
railway c
It just simple node-js console with some Railway bindings, e.g. models. Just one note
about working with console. Node.js is asynchronous by its nature, and it's great
but it made console debugging much more complicated, because you should use callback
to fetch result from database, for example. I have added one useful method to
simplify async debugging using railway console. It's name c, you can pass it
as parameter to any function requires callback, and it will store parameters passed
to callback to variables _0, _1, ..., _N where N is index in arguments.
Example:
railway c
railway> User.find(53, c)
Callback called with 2 arguments:
_0 = null
_1 = [object Object]
railway> _1
{ email: [Getter/Setter],
password: [Getter/Setter],
activationCode: [Getter/Setter],
activated: [Getter/Setter],
forcePassChange: [Getter/Setter],
isAdmin: [Getter/Setter],
id: [Getter/Setter] }
To add another language to app just create yml file in config/locales,
for example config/locales/jp.yml, copy contents of config/locales/en.yml to new
file and rename root node (en to jp in that case), also in lang section rename
name to Japanese (for example).
Next step - rename email files in app/views/emails, copy all files *.en.html
and *.en.text to *.jp.html and *.jp.text and translate new files.
NOTE: translation can contain % symbol(s), that means variable substitution
app.set('quiet', true); // force logger to log into `log/#{app.settings.env}.log`
railway.logger.write(msg); // to log message
Railway has some configuration options allows to customize app behavior
Enable controllers caching, should be turned on in prd. In development mode disabling cache allows to avoid server restarting after each model/controller change
app.disable('eval cache'); // in config/environments/development.js
app.enable('eval cache'); // in config/environments/production.js
Same option for models. When disabled model files evaluated per each request.
app.disable('model cache'); // in config/environments/development.js
Express.js option, enables view caching.
app.disable('view cache'); // in config/environments/development.js
Write logs to log/NODE_ENV.log
app.set('quiet', true); // in config/environments/test.js
Join all javascript files listed in javascript_include_tag into one
app.enable('merge javascripts'); // in config/environments/production.js
Join all stylesheet files listed in stylesheets_include_tag into one
app.enable('merge stylesheets'); // in config/environments/production.js
Copyright (C) 2011 by Anatoliy Chakkaev
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
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THE SOFTWARE.