Sinatra is a DSL for quickly creating web applications in Ruby with minimal effort:
# myapp.rb
require 'sinatra'
get '/' do
'Hello world!'
end
Install the gems needed:
gem install sinatra
gem install rackup
gem install puma # or any other server (optional step)
And run with:
ruby myapp.rb
View at: http://localhost:4567
The code you changed will not take effect until you restart the server. Please restart the server every time you change or use a code reloader like rerun or rack-unreloader.
It is recommended to also run gem install puma
, which Sinatra will
pick up if available.
- Sinatra
- Table of Contents
- Routes
- Conditions
- Return Values
- Custom Route Matchers
- Static Files
- Views / Templates
- Filters
- Helpers
- Configuration
- Lifecycle Events
- Environments
- Error Handling
- Rack Middleware
- Testing
- Sinatra::Base - Middleware, Libraries, and Modular Apps
- Scopes and Binding
- Command Line
- Requirement
- The Bleeding Edge
- Versioning
- Further Reading
In Sinatra, a route is an HTTP method paired with a URL-matching pattern. Each route is associated with a block:
get '/' do
.. show something ..
end
post '/' do
.. create something ..
end
put '/' do
.. replace something ..
end
patch '/' do
.. modify something ..
end
delete '/' do
.. annihilate something ..
end
options '/' do
.. appease something ..
end
link '/' do
.. affiliate something ..
end
unlink '/' do
.. separate something ..
end
Routes are matched in the order they are defined. The first route that matches the request is invoked.
Routes with trailing slashes are different from the ones without:
get '/foo' do
# Does not match "GET /foo/"
end
Route patterns may include named parameters, accessible via the
params
hash:
get '/hello/:name' do
# matches "GET /hello/foo" and "GET /hello/bar"
# params['name'] is 'foo' or 'bar'
"Hello #{params['name']}!"
end
You can also access named parameters via block parameters:
get '/hello/:name' do |n|
# matches "GET /hello/foo" and "GET /hello/bar"
# params['name'] is 'foo' or 'bar'
# n stores params['name']
"Hello #{n}!"
end
Route patterns may also include splat (or wildcard) parameters, accessible
via the params['splat']
array:
get '/say/*/to/*' do
# matches /say/hello/to/world
params['splat'] # => ["hello", "world"]
end
get '/download/*.*' do
# matches /download/path/to/file.xml
params['splat'] # => ["path/to/file", "xml"]
end
Or with block parameters:
get '/download/*.*' do |path, ext|
[path, ext] # => ["path/to/file", "xml"]
end
Route matching with Regular Expressions:
get /\/hello\/([\w]+)/ do
"Hello, #{params['captures'].first}!"
end
Or with a block parameter:
get %r{/hello/([\w]+)} do |c|
# Matches "GET /meta/hello/world", "GET /hello/world/1234" etc.
"Hello, #{c}!"
end
Route patterns may have optional parameters:
get '/posts/:format?' do
# matches "GET /posts/" and any extension "GET /posts/json", "GET /posts/xml" etc
end
Routes may also utilize query parameters:
get '/posts' do
# matches "GET /posts?title=foo&author=bar"
title = params['title']
author = params['author']
# uses title and author variables; query is optional to the /posts route
end
By the way, unless you disable the path traversal attack protection (see below), the request path might be modified before matching against your routes.
You may customize the Mustermann
options used for a given route by passing in a :mustermann_opts
hash:
get '\A/posts\z', :mustermann_opts => { :type => :regexp, :check_anchors => false } do
# matches /posts exactly, with explicit anchoring
"If you match an anchored pattern clap your hands!"
end
It looks like a condition, but it isn't one! These options will
be merged into the global :mustermann_opts
hash described
below.
Routes may include a variety of matching conditions, such as the user agent:
get '/foo', :agent => /Songbird (\d\.\d)[\d\/]*?/ do
"You're using Songbird version #{params['agent'][0]}"
end
get '/foo' do
# Matches non-songbird browsers
end
Other available conditions are host_name
and provides
:
get '/', :host_name => /^admin\./ do
"Admin Area, Access denied!"
end
get '/', :provides => 'html' do
haml :index
end
get '/', :provides => ['rss', 'atom', 'xml'] do
builder :feed
end
provides
searches the request's Accept header.
You can easily define your own conditions:
set(:probability) { |value| condition { rand <= value } }
get '/win_a_car', :probability => 0.1 do
"You won!"
end
get '/win_a_car' do
"Sorry, you lost."
end
For a condition that takes multiple values use a splat:
set(:auth) do |*roles| # <- notice the splat here
condition do
unless logged_in? && roles.any? {|role| current_user.in_role? role }
redirect "/login/", 303
end
end
end
get "/my/account/", :auth => [:user, :admin] do
"Your Account Details"
end
get "/only/admin/", :auth => :admin do
"Only admins are allowed here!"
end
The return value of a route block determines at least the response body passed on to the HTTP client or at least the next middleware in the Rack stack. Most commonly, this is a string, as in the above examples. But other values are also accepted.
You can return an object that would either be a valid Rack response, Rack body object or HTTP status code:
- An Array with three elements:
[status (Integer), headers (Hash), response body (responds to #each)]
- An Array with two elements:
[status (Integer), response body (responds to #each)]
- An object that responds to
#each
and passes nothing but strings to the given block - A Integer representing the status code
That way we can, for instance, easily implement a streaming example:
class Stream
def each
100.times { |i| yield "#{i}\n" }
end
end
get('/') { Stream.new }
You can also use the stream
helper method (described below) to reduce
boilerplate and embed the streaming logic in the route.
As shown above, Sinatra ships with built-in support for using String patterns and regular expressions as route matches. However, it does not stop there. You can easily define your own matchers:
class AllButPattern
def initialize(except)
@except = except
end
def to_pattern(options)
return self
end
def params(route)
return {} unless @except === route
end
end
def all_but(pattern)
AllButPattern.new(pattern)
end
get all_but("/index") do
# ...
end
Note that the above example might be over-engineered, as it can also be expressed as:
get /.*/ do
pass if request.path_info == "/index"
# ...
end
Static files are served from the ./public
directory. You can specify
a different location by setting the :public_folder
option:
set :public_folder, __dir__ + '/static'
Note that the public directory name is not included in the URL. A file
./public/css/style.css
is made available as
http://example.com/css/style.css
.
Use the :static_cache_control
setting (see below) to add
Cache-Control
header info.
Each template language is exposed via its own rendering method. These methods simply return a string:
get '/' do
erb :index
end
This renders views/index.erb
.
Instead of a template name, you can also just pass in the template content directly:
get '/' do
code = "<%= Time.now %>"
erb code
end
Templates take a second argument, the options hash:
get '/' do
erb :index, :layout => :post
end
This will render views/index.erb
embedded in the
views/post.erb
(default is views/layout.erb
, if it exists).
Any options not understood by Sinatra will be passed on to the template engine:
get '/' do
haml :index, :format => :html5
end
You can also set options per template language in general:
set :haml, :format => :html5
get '/' do
haml :index
end
Options passed to the render method override options set via set
.
Available Options:
- locals
- List of locals passed to the document. Handy with partials. Example: erb "<%= foo %>", :locals => {:foo => "bar"}
- default_encoding
- String encoding to use if uncertain. Defaults to settings.default_encoding.
- views
- Views folder to load templates from. Defaults to settings.views.
- layout
- Whether to use a layout (true or false). If it's a Symbol, specifies what template to use. Example: erb :index, :layout => !request.xhr?
- content_type
- Content-Type the template produces. Default depends on template language.
- scope
- Scope to render template under. Defaults to the application instance. If you change this, instance variables and helper methods will not be available.
- layout_engine
- Template engine to use for rendering the layout. Useful for languages that do not support layouts otherwise. Defaults to the engine used for the template. Example: set :rdoc, :layout_engine => :erb
- layout_options
- Special options only used for rendering the layout. Example: set :rdoc, :layout_options => { :views => 'views/layouts' }
Templates are assumed to be located directly under the ./views
directory. To use a different views directory:
set :views, settings.root + '/templates'
One important thing to remember is that you always have to reference
templates with symbols, even if they're in a subdirectory (in this case,
use: :'subdir/template'
or 'subdir/template'.to_sym
). You must use a
symbol because otherwise rendering methods will render any strings
passed to them directly.
get '/' do
haml '%div.title Hello World'
end
Renders the template string. You can optionally specify :path
and
:line
for a clearer backtrace if there is a filesystem path or line
associated with that string:
get '/' do
haml '%div.title Hello World', :path => 'examples/file.haml', :line => 3
end
Some languages have multiple implementations. To specify what implementation to use (and to be thread-safe), you should simply require it first:
require 'rdiscount'
get('/') { markdown :index }
Dependency | haml |
File Extension | .haml |
Example | haml :index, :format => :html5 |
Dependency | erubi or erb (included in Ruby) |
File Extensions | .erb, .rhtml or .erubi (Erubi only) |
Example | erb :index |
Dependency | builder |
File Extension | .builder |
Example | builder { |xml| xml.em "hi" } |
It also takes a block for inline templates (see example).
Dependency | nokogiri |
File Extension | .nokogiri |
Example | nokogiri { |xml| xml.em "hi" } |
It also takes a block for inline templates (see example).
Dependency | sass-embedded |
File Extension | .sass |
Example | sass :stylesheet, :style => :expanded |
Dependency | sass-embedded |
File Extension | .scss |
Example | scss :stylesheet, :style => :expanded |
Dependency | liquid |
File Extension | .liquid |
Example | liquid :index, :locals => { :key => 'value' } |
Since you cannot call Ruby methods (except for yield
) from a Liquid
template, you almost always want to pass locals to it.
Dependency | Anyone of: RDiscount, RedCarpet, kramdown, commonmarker pandoc |
File Extensions | .markdown, .mkd and .md |
Example | markdown :index, :layout_engine => :erb |
It is not possible to call methods from Markdown, nor to pass locals to it. You therefore will usually use it in combination with another rendering engine:
erb :overview, :locals => { :text => markdown(:introduction) }
Note that you may also call the markdown
method from within other
templates:
%h1 Hello From Haml!
%p= markdown(:greetings)
Since you cannot call Ruby from Markdown, you cannot use layouts written in
Markdown. However, it is possible to use another rendering engine for the
template than for the layout by passing the :layout_engine
option.
Dependency | RDoc |
File Extension | .rdoc |
Example | rdoc :README, :layout_engine => :erb |
It is not possible to call methods from RDoc, nor to pass locals to it. You therefore will usually use it in combination with another rendering engine:
erb :overview, :locals => { :text => rdoc(:introduction) }
Note that you may also call the rdoc
method from within other templates:
%h1 Hello From Haml!
%p= rdoc(:greetings)
Since you cannot call Ruby from RDoc, you cannot use layouts written in
RDoc. However, it is possible to use another rendering engine for the
template than for the layout by passing the :layout_engine
option.
Dependency | Asciidoctor |
File Extension | .asciidoc, .adoc and .ad |
Example | asciidoc :README, :layout_engine => :erb |
Since you cannot call Ruby methods directly from an AsciiDoc template, you almost always want to pass locals to it.
Dependency | Markaby |
File Extension | .mab |
Example | markaby { h1 "Welcome!" } |
It also takes a block for inline templates (see example).
Dependency | Rabl |
File Extension | .rabl |
Example | rabl :index |
Dependency | Slim Lang |
File Extension | .slim |
Example | slim :index |
Dependency | yajl-ruby |
File Extension | .yajl |
Example | yajl :index, :locals => { :key => 'qux' }, :callback => 'present', :variable => 'resource' |
The template source is evaluated as a Ruby string, and the
resulting json variable is converted using #to_json
:
json = { :foo => 'bar' }
json[:baz] = key
The :callback
and :variable
options can be used to decorate the rendered
object:
var resource = {"foo":"bar","baz":"qux"};
present(resource);
Templates are evaluated within the same context as route handlers. Instance variables set in route handlers are directly accessible by templates:
get '/:id' do
@foo = Foo.find(params['id'])
haml '%h1= @foo.name'
end
Or, specify an explicit Hash of local variables:
get '/:id' do
foo = Foo.find(params['id'])
haml '%h1= bar.name', :locals => { :bar => foo }
end
This is typically used when rendering templates as partials from within other templates.
A layout is usually just a template that calls yield
.
Such a template can be used either through the :template
option as
described above, or it can be rendered with a block as follows:
erb :post, :layout => false do
erb :index
end
This code is mostly equivalent to erb :index, :layout => :post
.
Passing blocks to rendering methods is most useful for creating nested layouts:
erb :main_layout, :layout => false do
erb :admin_layout do
erb :user
end
end
This can also be done in fewer lines of code with:
erb :admin_layout, :layout => :main_layout do
erb :user
end
Currently, the following rendering methods accept a block: erb
, haml
,
liquid
, slim
. Also, the general render
method accepts a block.
Templates may be defined at the end of the source file:
require 'sinatra'
get '/' do
haml :index
end
__END__
@@ layout
%html
!= yield
@@ index
%div.title Hello world.
NOTE: Inline templates defined in the source file that requires Sinatra are
automatically loaded. Call enable :inline_templates
explicitly if you
have inline templates in other source files.
Templates may also be defined using the top-level template
method:
template :layout do
"%html\n =yield\n"
end
template :index do
'%div.title Hello World!'
end
get '/' do
haml :index
end
If a template named "layout" exists, it will be used each time a template
is rendered. You can individually disable layouts by passing
:layout => false
or disable them by default via
set :haml, :layout => false
:
get '/' do
haml :index, :layout => !request.xhr?
end
To associate a file extension with a template engine, use
Tilt.register
. For instance, if you like to use the file extension
tt
for Haml templates, you can do the following:
Tilt.register Tilt[:haml], :tt
First, register your engine with Tilt, then create a rendering method:
Tilt.register MyAwesomeTemplateEngine, :myat
helpers do
def myat(*args) render(:myat, *args) end
end
get '/' do
myat :index
end
Renders ./views/index.myat
. Learn more about
Tilt.
To implement your own template lookup mechanism you can write your
own #find_template
method:
configure do
set :views, [ './views/a', './views/b' ]
end
def find_template(views, name, engine, &block)
Array(views).each do |v|
super(v, name, engine, &block)
end
end
Before filters are evaluated before each request within the same context as the routes will be and can modify the request and response. Instance variables set in filters are accessible by routes and templates:
before do
@note = 'Hi!'
request.path_info = '/foo/bar/baz'
end
get '/foo/*' do
@note #=> 'Hi!'
params['splat'] #=> 'bar/baz'
end
After filters are evaluated after each request within the same context as the routes will be and can also modify the request and response. Instance variables set in before filters and routes are accessible by after filters:
after do
puts response.status
end
Note: Unless you use the body
method rather than just returning a
String from the routes, the body will not yet be available in the after
filter, since it is generated later on.
Filters optionally take a pattern, causing them to be evaluated only if the request path matches that pattern:
before '/protected/*' do
authenticate!
end
after '/create/:slug' do |slug|
session[:last_slug] = slug
end
Like routes, filters also take conditions:
before :agent => /Songbird/ do
# ...
end
after '/blog/*', :host_name => 'example.com' do
# ...
end
Use the top-level helpers
method to define helper methods for use in
route handlers and templates:
helpers do
def bar(name)
"#{name}bar"
end
end
get '/:name' do
bar(params['name'])
end
Alternatively, helper methods can be separately defined in a module:
module FooUtils
def foo(name) "#{name}foo" end
end
module BarUtils
def bar(name) "#{name}bar" end
end
helpers FooUtils, BarUtils
The effect is the same as including the modules in the application class.
A session is used to keep state during requests. If activated, you have one session hash per user session:
enable :sessions
get '/' do
"value = " << session[:value].inspect
end
get '/:value' do
session['value'] = params['value']
end
To improve security, the session data in the cookie is signed with a session
secret using HMAC-SHA1
. This session secret should optimally be a
cryptographically secure random value of an appropriate length which for
HMAC-SHA1
is greater than or equal to 64 bytes (512 bits, 128 hex
characters). You would be advised not to use a secret that is less than 32
bytes of randomness (256 bits, 64 hex characters). It is therefore very
important that you don't just make the secret up, but instead use a secure
random number generator to create it. Humans are extremely bad at generating
random values.
By default, a 32 byte secure random session secret is generated for you by Sinatra, but it will change with every restart of your application. If you have multiple instances of your application, and you let Sinatra generate the key, each instance would then have a different session key which is probably not what you want.
For better security and usability it's recommended that you generate a secure random secret and store it in an environment variable on each host running your application so that all of your application instances will share the same secret. You should periodically rotate this session secret to a new value. Here are some examples of how you might create a 64-byte secret and set it:
Session Secret Generation
$ ruby -e "require 'securerandom'; puts SecureRandom.hex(64)"
99ae8af...snip...ec0f262ac
Session Secret Environment Variable
Set a SESSION_SECRET
environment variable for Sinatra to the value you
generated. Make this value persistent across reboots of your host. Since the
method for doing this will vary across systems this is for illustrative
purposes only:
# echo "export SESSION_SECRET=99ae8af...snip...ec0f262ac" >> ~/.bashrc
Session Secret App Config
Set up your app config to fail-safe to a secure random secret
if the SESSION_SECRET
environment variable is not available:
require 'securerandom'
set :session_secret, ENV.fetch('SESSION_SECRET') { SecureRandom.hex(64) }
If you want to configure it further, you may also store a hash with options
in the sessions
setting:
set :sessions, :domain => 'foo.com'
To share your session across other apps on subdomains of foo.com, prefix the domain with a . like this instead:
set :sessions, :domain => '.foo.com'
Note that enable :sessions
actually stores all data in a cookie. This
might not always be what you want (storing lots of data will increase your
traffic, for instance). You can use any Rack session middleware in order to
do so, one of the following methods can be used:
enable :sessions
set :session_store, Rack::Session::Pool
Or to set up sessions with a hash of options:
set :sessions, :expire_after => 2592000
set :session_store, Rack::Session::Pool
Another option is to not call enable :sessions
, but instead pull in
your middleware of choice as you would any other middleware.
It is important to note that when using this method, session based protection will not be enabled by default.
The Rack middleware to do that will also need to be added:
use Rack::Session::Pool, :expire_after => 2592000
use Rack::Protection::RemoteToken
use Rack::Protection::SessionHijacking
See 'Configuring attack protection' for more information.
To immediately stop a request within a filter or route use:
halt
You can also specify the status when halting:
halt 410
Or the body:
halt 'this will be the body'
Or both:
halt 401, 'go away!'
With headers:
halt 402, {'Content-Type' => 'text/plain'}, 'revenge'
It is of course possible to combine a template with halt
:
halt erb(:error)
A route can punt processing to the next matching route using pass
:
get '/guess/:who' do
pass unless params['who'] == 'Frank'
'You got me!'
end
get '/guess/*' do
'You missed!'
end
The route block is immediately exited and control continues with the next matching route. If no matching route is found, a 404 is returned.
Sometimes pass
is not what you want, instead, you would like to get the
result of calling another route. Simply use call
to achieve this:
get '/foo' do
status, headers, body = call env.merge("PATH_INFO" => '/bar')
[status, headers, body.map(&:upcase)]
end
get '/bar' do
"bar"
end
Note that in the example above, you would ease testing and increase
performance by simply moving "bar"
into a helper used by both /foo
and
/bar
.
If you want the request to be sent to the same application instance rather
than a duplicate, use call!
instead of call
.
Check out the Rack specification if you want to learn more about call
.
It is possible and recommended to set the status code and response body with
the return value of the route block. However, in some scenarios, you might
want to set the body at an arbitrary point in the execution flow. You can do
so with the body
helper method. If you do so, you can use that method from
thereon to access the body:
get '/foo' do
body "bar"
end
after do
puts body
end
It is also possible to pass a block to body
, which will be executed by the
Rack handler (this can be used to implement streaming, see "Return Values").
Similar to the body, you can also set the status code and headers:
get '/foo' do
status 418
headers \
"Allow" => "BREW, POST, GET, PROPFIND, WHEN",
"Refresh" => "Refresh: 20; https://ietf.org/rfc/rfc2324.txt"
body "I'm a teapot!"
end
Like body
, headers
and status
with no arguments can be used to access
their current values.
Sometimes you want to start sending out data while still generating parts of
the response body. In extreme examples, you want to keep sending data until
the client closes the connection. You can use the stream
helper to avoid
creating your own wrapper:
get '/' do
stream do |out|
out << "It's gonna be legen -\n"
sleep 0.5
out << " (wait for it) \n"
sleep 1
out << "- dary!\n"
end
end
This allows you to implement streaming APIs, Server Sent Events, and can be used as the basis for WebSockets. It can also be used to increase throughput if some but not all content depends on a slow resource.
Note that the streaming behavior, especially the number of concurrent
requests, highly depends on the webserver used to serve the application.
Some servers might not even support streaming at all. If the server does not
support streaming, the body will be sent all at once after the block passed
to stream
finishes executing. Streaming does not work at all with Shotgun.
If the optional parameter is set to keep_open
, it will not call close
on
the stream object, allowing you to close it at any later point in the
execution flow.
You can have a look at the chat example
It's also possible for the client to close the connection when trying to
write to the socket. Because of this, it's recommended to check
out.closed?
before trying to write.
In the request scope, the logger
helper exposes a Logger
instance:
get '/' do
logger.info "loading data"
# ...
end
This logger will automatically take your Rack handler's logging settings into account. If logging is disabled, this method will return a dummy object, so you do not have to worry about it in your routes and filters.
Note that logging is only enabled for Sinatra::Application
by default, so
if you inherit from Sinatra::Base
, you probably want to enable it yourself:
class MyApp < Sinatra::Base
configure :production, :development do
enable :logging
end
end
To avoid any logging middleware to be set up, set the logging
option to
nil
. However, keep in mind that logger
will in that case return nil
. A
common use case is when you want to set your own logger. Sinatra will use
whatever it will find in env['rack.logger']
.
When using send_file
or static files you may have mime types Sinatra
doesn't understand. Use mime_type
to register them by file extension:
configure do
mime_type :foo, 'text/foo'
end
You can also use it with the content_type
helper:
get '/' do
content_type :foo
"foo foo foo"
end
For generating URLs you should use the url
helper method, for instance, in
Haml:
%a{:href => url('/foo')} foo
It takes reverse proxies and Rack routers into account - if present.
This method is also aliased to to
(see below for an example).
You can trigger a browser redirect with the redirect
helper method:
get '/foo' do
redirect to('/bar')
end
Any additional parameters are handled like arguments passed to halt
:
redirect to('/bar'), 303
redirect 'http://www.google.com/', 'wrong place, buddy'
You can also easily redirect back to the page the user came from with
redirect back
:
get '/foo' do
"<a href='/bar'>do something</a>"
end
get '/bar' do
do_something
redirect back
end
To pass arguments with a redirect, either add them to the query:
redirect to('/bar?sum=42')
Or use a session:
enable :sessions
get '/foo' do
session[:secret] = 'foo'
redirect to('/bar')
end
get '/bar' do
session[:secret]
end
Setting your headers correctly is the foundation for proper HTTP caching.
You can easily set the Cache-Control header like this:
get '/' do
cache_control :public
"cache it!"
end
Pro tip: Set up caching in a before filter:
before do
cache_control :public, :must_revalidate, :max_age => 60
end
If you are using the expires
helper to set the corresponding header,
Cache-Control
will be set automatically for you:
before do
expires 500, :public, :must_revalidate
end
To properly use caches, you should consider using etag
or last_modified
.
It is recommended to call those helpers before doing any heavy lifting, as
they will immediately flush a response if the client already has the current
version in its cache:
get "/article/:id" do
@article = Article.find params['id']
last_modified @article.updated_at
etag @article.sha1
erb :article
end
It is also possible to use a weak ETag:
etag @article.sha1, :weak
These helpers will not do any caching for you, but rather feed the necessary information to your cache. If you are looking for a quick reverse-proxy caching solution, try rack-cache:
require "rack/cache"
require "sinatra"
use Rack::Cache
get '/' do
cache_control :public, :max_age => 36000
sleep 5
"hello"
end
Use the :static_cache_control
setting (see below) to add
Cache-Control
header info to static files.
According to RFC 2616, your application should behave differently if the
If-Match or If-None-Match header is set to *
, depending on whether the
resource requested is already in existence. Sinatra assumes resources for
safe (like get) and idempotent (like put) requests are already in existence,
whereas other resources (for instance post requests) are treated as new
resources. You can change this behavior by passing in a :new_resource
option:
get '/create' do
etag '', :new_resource => true
Article.create
erb :new_article
end
If you still want to use a weak ETag, pass in a :kind
option:
etag '', :new_resource => true, :kind => :weak
To return the contents of a file as the response, you can use the send_file
helper method:
get '/' do
send_file 'foo.png'
end
It also takes options:
send_file 'foo.png', :type => :jpg
The options are:
- filename
- File name to be used in the response, defaults to the real file name.
- last_modified
- Value for Last-Modified header, defaults to the file's mtime.
- type
- Value for Content-Type header, guessed from the file extension if missing.
- disposition
- Value for Content-Disposition header, possible values: nil (default), :attachment and :inline
- length
- Value for Content-Length header, defaults to file size.
- status
- Status code to be sent. Useful when sending a static file as an error page. If supported by the Rack handler, other means than streaming from the Ruby process will be used. If you use this helper method, Sinatra will automatically handle range requests.
The incoming request object can be accessed from request level (filter,
routes, error handlers) through the request
method:
# app running on http://example.com/example
get '/foo' do
t = %w[text/css text/html application/javascript]
request.accept # ['text/html', '*/*']
request.accept? 'text/xml' # true
request.preferred_type(t) # 'text/html'
request.body # request body sent by the client (see below)
request.scheme # "http"
request.script_name # "/example"
request.path_info # "/foo"
request.port # 80
request.request_method # "GET"
request.query_string # ""
request.content_length # length of request.body
request.media_type # media type of request.body
request.host # "example.com"
request.get? # true (similar methods for other verbs)
request.form_data? # false
request["some_param"] # value of some_param parameter. [] is a shortcut to the params hash.
request.referrer # the referrer of the client or '/'
request.user_agent # user agent (used by :agent condition)
request.cookies # hash of browser cookies
request.xhr? # is this an ajax request?
request.url # "http://example.com/example/foo"
request.path # "/example/foo"
request.ip # client IP address
request.secure? # false (would be true over ssl)
request.forwarded? # true (if running behind a reverse proxy)
request.env # raw env hash handed in by Rack
end
Some options, like script_name
or path_info
, can also be written:
before { request.path_info = "/" }
get "/" do
"all requests end up here"
end
The request.body
is an IO or StringIO object:
post "/api" do
request.body.rewind # in case someone already read it
data = JSON.parse request.body.read
"Hello #{data['name']}!"
end
You can use the attachment
helper to tell the browser the response should
be stored on disk rather than displayed in the browser:
get '/' do
attachment
"store it!"
end
You can also pass it a file name:
get '/' do
attachment "info.txt"
"store it!"
end
Sinatra offers a time_for
helper method that generates a Time object from
the given value. It is also able to convert DateTime
, Date
and similar
classes:
get '/' do
pass if Time.now > time_for('Dec 23, 2016')
"still time"
end
This method is used internally by expires
, last_modified
and akin. You
can therefore easily extend the behavior of those methods by overriding
time_for
in your application:
helpers do
def time_for(value)
case value
when :yesterday then Time.now - 24*60*60
when :tomorrow then Time.now + 24*60*60
else super
end
end
end
get '/' do
last_modified :yesterday
expires :tomorrow
"hello"
end
The find_template
helper is used to find template files for rendering:
find_template settings.views, 'foo', Tilt[:haml] do |file|
puts "could be #{file}"
end
This is not really useful. But it is useful that you can actually override this method to hook in your own lookup mechanism. For instance, if you want to be able to use more than one view directory:
set :views, ['views', 'templates']
helpers do
def find_template(views, name, engine, &block)
Array(views).each { |v| super(v, name, engine, &block) }
end
end
Another example would be using different directories for different engines:
set :views, :haml => 'templates', :default => 'views'
helpers do
def find_template(views, name, engine, &block)
_, folder = views.detect { |k,v| engine == Tilt[k] }
folder ||= views[:default]
super(folder, name, engine, &block)
end
end
You can also easily wrap this up in an extension and share it with others!
Note that find_template
does not check if the file really exists but
rather calls the given block for all possible paths. This is not a
performance issue, since render
will use break
as soon as a file is
found. Also, template locations (and content) will be cached if you are not
running in development mode. You should keep that in mind if you write a
really crazy method.
Run once, at startup, in any environment:
configure do
# setting one option
set :option, 'value'
# setting multiple options
set :a => 1, :b => 2
# same as `set :option, true`
enable :option
# same as `set :option, false`
disable :option
# you can also have dynamic settings with blocks
set(:css_dir) { File.join(views, 'css') }
end
Run only when the environment (APP_ENV
environment variable) is set to
:production
:
configure :production do
...
end
Run when the environment is set to either :production
or :test
:
configure :production, :test do
...
end
You can access those options via settings
:
configure do
set :foo, 'bar'
end
get '/' do
settings.foo? # => true
settings.foo # => 'bar'
...
end
Sinatra is using Rack::Protection to defend your application against common, opportunistic attacks. You can easily disable this behavior (which will open up your application to tons of common vulnerabilities):
disable :protection
To skip a single defense layer, set protection
to an options hash:
set :protection, :except => :path_traversal
You can also hand in an array in order to disable a list of protections:
set :protection, :except => [:path_traversal, :remote_token]
By default, Sinatra will only set up session based protection if :sessions
have been enabled. See 'Using Sessions'. Sometimes you may want to set up
sessions "outside" of the Sinatra app, such as in the config.ru or with a
separate Rack::Builder
instance. In that case, you can still set up session
based protection by passing the :session
option:
set :protection, :session => true
- absolute_redirects
- If disabled, Sinatra will allow relative redirects, however, Sinatra will no longer conform with RFC 2616 (HTTP 1.1), which only allows absolute redirects.
- Enable if your app is running behind a reverse proxy that has not been set up properly. Note that the url helper will still produce absolute URLs, unless you pass in false as the second parameter.
- Disabled by default.
- add_charset
- Mime types the content_type helper will automatically add the charset info to. You should add to it rather than overriding this option: settings.add_charset << "application/foobar"
- app_file
- Path to the main application file, used to detect project root, views and public folder and inline templates.
- bind
- IP address to bind to (default: 0.0.0.0 or localhost if your `environment` is set to development). Only used for built-in server.
- default_content_type
- Content-Type to assume if unknown (defaults to "text/html"). Set to nil to not set a default Content-Type on every response; when configured so, you must set the Content-Type manually when emitting content or the user-agent will have to sniff it (or, if nosniff is enabled in Rack::Protection::XSSHeader, assume application/octet-stream).
- default_encoding
- Encoding to assume if unknown (defaults to "utf-8").
- dump_errors
- Display errors in the log. Enabled by default unless environment is "test".
- environment
- Current environment. Defaults to ENV['APP_ENV'], or "development" if not available.
- logging
- Use the logger.
- lock
- Places a lock around every request, only running processing on request per Ruby process concurrently.
- Enabled if your app is not thread-safe. Disabled by default.
- method_override
- Use _method magic to allow put/delete forms in browsers that don't support it.
- mustermann_opts
- A default hash of options to pass to Mustermann.new when compiling routing paths.
- port
- Port to listen on. Only used for built-in server.
- prefixed_redirects
- Whether or not to insert request.script_name into redirects if no absolute path is given. That way redirect '/foo' would behave like redirect to('/foo'). Disabled by default.
- protection
- Whether or not to enable web attack protections. See protection section above.
- public_dir
- Alias for public_folder. See below.
- public_folder
- Path to the folder public files are served from. Only used if static file serving is enabled (see static setting below). Inferred from app_file setting if not set.
- quiet
- Disables logs generated by Sinatra's start and stop commands. false by default.
- reload_templates
- Whether or not to reload templates between requests. Enabled in development mode.
- root
- Path to project root folder. Inferred from app_file setting if not set.
- raise_errors
- Raise unhandled errors (will stop application). Enabled by default when environment is set to "test", disabled otherwise.
- Any explicitly defined error handlers always override this setting. See the "Error" section below.
- run
- If enabled, Sinatra will handle starting the web server. Do not enable if using rackup or other means.
- running
- Is the built-in server running now? Do not change this setting!
- server
- Server or list of servers to use for built-in server. Order indicates priority, default depends on Ruby implementation.
- server_settings
- If you are using a WEBrick web server, presumably for your development environment, you can pass a hash of options to server_settings, such as SSLEnable or SSLVerifyClient. However, web servers such as Puma do not support this, so you can set server_settings by defining it as a method when you call configure.
- sessions
- Enable cookie-based sessions support using Rack::Session::Cookie. See 'Using Sessions' section for more information.
- session_store
- The Rack session middleware used. Defaults to Rack::Session::Cookie. See 'Using Sessions' section for more information.
- show_exceptions
- Show a stack trace in the browser when an exception happens. Enabled by default when environment is set to "development", disabled otherwise.
- Can also be set to :after_handler to trigger app-specified error handling before showing a stack trace in the browser.
- static
- Whether Sinatra should handle serving static files.
- Disable when using a server able to do this on its own.
- Disabling will boost performance.
- Enabled by default in classic style, disabled for modular apps.
- static_cache_control
- When Sinatra is serving static files, set this to add Cache-Control headers to the responses. Uses the cache_control helper. Disabled by default.
- Use an explicit array when setting multiple values: set :static_cache_control, [:public, :max_age => 300]
- threaded
- If set to true, will tell server to use EventMachine.defer for processing the request.
- traps
- Whether Sinatra should handle system signals.
- views
- Path to the views folder. Inferred from app_file setting if not set.
- x_cascade
- Whether or not to set the X-Cascade header if no route matches. Defaults to true.
There are 2 lifecycle events currently exposed by Sinatra. One when the server starts and one when it stops.
They can be used like this:
on_start do
puts "===== Booting up ====="
end
on_stop do
puts "===== Shutting down ====="
end
Note that these callbacks only work when using Sinatra to start the web server.
There are three predefined environments
: "development"
,
"production"
and "test"
. Environments can be set through the
APP_ENV
environment variable. The default value is "development"
.
In the "development"
environment all templates are reloaded between
requests, and special not_found
and error
handlers display stack
traces in your browser. In the "production"
and "test"
environments,
templates are cached by default.
To run different environments, set the APP_ENV
environment variable:
APP_ENV=production ruby my_app.rb
You can use predefined methods: development?
, test?
and production?
to
check the current environment setting:
get '/' do
if settings.development?
"development!"
else
"not development!"
end
end
Error handlers run within the same context as routes and before filters,
which means you get all the goodies it has to offer, like haml
, erb
,
halt
, etc.
When a Sinatra::NotFound
exception is raised, or the response's status
code is 404, the not_found
handler is invoked:
not_found do
'This is nowhere to be found.'
end
The error
handler is invoked any time an exception is raised from a route
block or a filter. But note in development it will only run if you set the
show exceptions option to :after_handler
:
set :show_exceptions, :after_handler
A catch-all error handler can be defined with error
and a block:
error do
'Sorry there was a nasty error'
end
The exception object can be obtained from the sinatra.error
Rack variable:
error do
'Sorry there was a nasty error - ' + env['sinatra.error'].message
end
Pass an error class as an argument to create handlers for custom errors:
error MyCustomError do
'So what happened was...' + env['sinatra.error'].message
end
Then, if this happens:
get '/' do
raise MyCustomError, 'something bad'
end
You get this:
So what happened was... something bad
Alternatively, you can install an error handler for a status code:
error 403 do
'Access forbidden'
end
get '/secret' do
403
end
Or a range:
error 400..510 do
'Boom'
end
Sinatra installs special not_found
and error
handlers when
running under the development environment to display nice stack traces
and additional debugging information in your browser.
When raise_errors
option is true
, errors that are unhandled are raised
outside of the application. Additionally, any errors that would have been
caught by the catch-all error handler are raised.
For example, consider the following configuration:
# First handler
error MyCustomError do
'A custom message'
end
# Second handler
error do
'A catch-all message'
end
If raise_errors
is false
:
- When
MyCustomError
or descendant is raised, the first handler is invoked. The HTTP response body will contain"A custom message"
. - When any other error is raised, the second handler is invoked. The HTTP
response body will contain
"A catch-all message"
.
If raise_errors
is true
:
- When
MyCustomError
or descendant is raised, the behavior is identical to whenraise_errors
isfalse
, described above. - When any other error is raised, the second handler is not invoked, and
the error is raised outside of the application.
- If the environment is
production
, the HTTP response body will contain a generic error message, e.g."An unhandled lowlevel error occurred. The application logs may have details."
- If the environment is not
production
, the HTTP response body will contain the verbose error backtrace. - Regardless of environment, if
show_exceptions
is set to:after_handler
, the HTTP response body will contain the verbose error backtrace.
- If the environment is
In the test
environment, raise_errors
is set to true
by default. This
means that in order to write a test for a catch-all error handler,
raise_errors
must temporarily be set to false
for that particular test.
Sinatra rides on Rack, a minimal standard interface for Ruby web frameworks. One of Rack's most interesting capabilities for application developers is support for "middleware" -- components that sit between the server and your application monitoring and/or manipulating the HTTP request/response to provide various types of common functionality.
Sinatra makes building Rack middleware pipelines a cinch via a top-level
use
method:
require 'sinatra'
require 'my_custom_middleware'
use Rack::Lint
use MyCustomMiddleware
get '/hello' do
'Hello World'
end
The semantics of use
are identical to those defined for the
Rack::Builder DSL
(most frequently used from rackup files). For example, the use
method
accepts multiple/variable args as well as blocks:
use Rack::Auth::Basic do |username, password|
username == 'admin' && password == 'secret'
end
Rack is distributed with a variety of standard middleware for logging,
debugging, URL routing, authentication, and session handling. Sinatra uses
many of these components automatically based on configuration so you
typically don't have to use
them explicitly.
You can find useful middleware in rack, rack-contrib, or in the Rack wiki.
Sinatra tests can be written using any Rack-based testing library or framework. Rack::Test is recommended:
require 'my_sinatra_app'
require 'minitest/autorun'
require 'rack/test'
class MyAppTest < Minitest::Test
include Rack::Test::Methods
def app
Sinatra::Application
end
def test_my_default
get '/'
assert_equal 'Hello World!', last_response.body
end
def test_with_params
get '/meet', :name => 'Frank'
assert_equal 'Hello Frank!', last_response.body
end
def test_with_user_agent
get '/', {}, 'HTTP_USER_AGENT' => 'Songbird'
assert_equal "You're using Songbird!", last_response.body
end
end
Note: If you are using Sinatra in the modular style, replace
Sinatra::Application
above with the class name of your app.
Defining your app at the top-level works well for micro-apps but has
considerable drawbacks when building reusable components such as Rack
middleware, Rails metal, simple libraries with a server component, or even
Sinatra extensions. The top-level assumes a micro-app style configuration
(e.g., a single application file, ./public
and ./views
directories, logging, exception detail page, etc.). That's where
Sinatra::Base
comes into play:
require 'sinatra/base'
class MyApp < Sinatra::Base
set :sessions, true
set :foo, 'bar'
get '/' do
'Hello world!'
end
end
The methods available to Sinatra::Base
subclasses are exactly the same
as those available via the top-level DSL. Most top-level apps can be
converted to Sinatra::Base
components with two modifications:
- Your file should require
sinatra/base
instead ofsinatra
; otherwise, all of Sinatra's DSL methods are imported into the main namespace. - Put your app's routes, error handlers, filters, and options in a subclass
of
Sinatra::Base
.
Sinatra::Base
is a blank slate. Most options are disabled by default,
including the built-in server. See Configuring
Settings for details on
available options and their behavior. If you want behavior more similar
to when you define your app at the top level (also known as Classic
style), you can subclass Sinatra::Application
:
require 'sinatra/base'
class MyApp < Sinatra::Application
get '/' do
'Hello world!'
end
end
Contrary to common belief, there is nothing wrong with the classic style. If it suits your application, you do not have to switch to a modular application.
The main disadvantage of using the classic style rather than the modular style is that you will only have one Sinatra application per Ruby process. If you plan to use more than one, switch to the modular style. There is no reason you cannot mix the modular and classic styles.
If switching from one style to the other, you should be aware of slightly different default settings:
Setting | Classic | Modular | Modular |
---|---|---|---|
app_file | file loading sinatra | file subclassing Sinatra::Base | file subclassing Sinatra::Application |
run | $0 == app_file | false | false |
logging | true | false | true |
method_override | true | false | true |
inline_templates | true | false | true |
static | true | File.exist?(public_folder) | true |
There are two common options for starting a modular app, actively
starting with run!
:
# my_app.rb
require 'sinatra/base'
class MyApp < Sinatra::Base
# ... app code here ...
# start the server if ruby file executed directly
run! if app_file == $0
end
Start with:
ruby my_app.rb
Or with a config.ru
file, which allows using any Rack handler:
# config.ru (run with rackup)
require './my_app'
run MyApp
Run:
rackup -p 4567
Write your app file:
# app.rb
require 'sinatra'
get '/' do
'Hello world!'
end
And a corresponding config.ru
:
require './app'
run Sinatra::Application
A config.ru
file is recommended if:
- You want to deploy with a different Rack handler (Passenger, Unicorn, Heroku, ...).
- You want to use more than one subclass of
Sinatra::Base
. - You want to use Sinatra only for middleware, and not as an endpoint.
There is no need to switch to a config.ru
simply because you
switched to the modular style, and you don't have to use the modular
style for running with a config.ru
.
Not only is Sinatra able to use other Rack middleware, any Sinatra application can, in turn, be added in front of any Rack endpoint as middleware itself. This endpoint could be another Sinatra application, or any other Rack-based application (Rails/Hanami/Roda/...):
require 'sinatra/base'
class LoginScreen < Sinatra::Base
enable :sessions
get('/login') { haml :login }
post('/login') do
if params['name'] == 'admin' && params['password'] == 'admin'
session['user_name'] = params['name']
else
redirect '/login'
end
end
end
class MyApp < Sinatra::Base
# middleware will run before filters
use LoginScreen
before do
unless session['user_name']
halt "Access denied, please <a href='/login'>login</a>."
end
end
get('/') { "Hello #{session['user_name']}." }
end
Sometimes you want to create new applications at runtime without having to
assign them to a constant. You can do this with Sinatra.new
:
require 'sinatra/base'
my_app = Sinatra.new { get('/') { "hi" } }
my_app.run!
It takes the application to inherit from as an optional argument:
# config.ru (run with rackup)
require 'sinatra/base'
controller = Sinatra.new do
enable :logging
helpers MyHelpers
end
map('/a') do
run Sinatra.new(controller) { get('/') { 'a' } }
end
map('/b') do
run Sinatra.new(controller) { get('/') { 'b' } }
end
This is especially useful for testing Sinatra extensions or using Sinatra in your own library.
This also makes using Sinatra as middleware extremely easy:
require 'sinatra/base'
use Sinatra do
get('/') { ... }
end
run RailsProject::Application
The scope you are currently in determines what methods and variables are available.
Every Sinatra application corresponds to a subclass of Sinatra::Base
.
If you are using the top-level DSL (require 'sinatra'
), then this
class is Sinatra::Application
, otherwise it is the subclass you
created explicitly. At the class level, you have methods like get
or
before
, but you cannot access the request
or session
objects, as
there is only a single application class for all requests.
Options created via set
are methods at class level:
class MyApp < Sinatra::Base
# Hey, I'm in the application scope!
set :foo, 42
foo # => 42
get '/foo' do
# Hey, I'm no longer in the application scope!
end
end
You have the application scope binding inside:
- Your application class body
- Methods defined by extensions
- The block passed to
helpers
- Procs/blocks used as a value for
set
- The block passed to
Sinatra.new
You can reach the scope object (the class) like this:
- Via the object passed to configure blocks (
configure { |c| ... }
) settings
from within the request scope
For every incoming request, a new instance of your application class is
created, and all handler blocks run in that scope. From within this scope you
can access the request
and session
objects or call rendering methods like
erb
or haml
. You can access the application scope from within the request
scope via the settings
helper:
class MyApp < Sinatra::Base
# Hey, I'm in the application scope!
get '/define_route/:name' do
# Request scope for '/define_route/:name'
@value = 42
settings.get("/#{params['name']}") do
# Request scope for "/#{params['name']}"
@value # => nil (not the same request)
end
"Route defined!"
end
end
You have the request scope binding inside:
- get, head, post, put, delete, options, patch, link and unlink blocks
- before and after filters
- helper methods
- templates/views
The delegation scope just forwards methods to the class scope. However, it
does not behave exactly like the class scope, as you do not have the class
binding. Only methods explicitly marked for delegation are available, and you
do not share variables/state with the class scope (read: you have a different
self
). You can explicitly add method delegations by calling
Sinatra::Delegator.delegate :method_name
.
You have the delegate scope binding inside:
- The top-level binding, if you did
require "sinatra"
- An object extended with the
Sinatra::Delegator
mixin
Have a look at the code for yourself: here's the Sinatra::Delegator mixin being extending the main object.
Sinatra applications can be run directly:
ruby myapp.rb [-h] [-x] [-q] [-e ENVIRONMENT] [-p PORT] [-o HOST] [-s HANDLER]
Options are:
-h # help
-p # set the port (default is 4567)
-o # set the host (default is 0.0.0.0)
-e # set the environment (default is development)
-s # specify rack server/handler (default is puma)
-q # turn on quiet mode for server (default is off)
-x # turn on the mutex lock (default is off)
Paraphrasing from this StackOverflow answer by Konstantin
Sinatra doesn't impose any concurrency model but leaves that to the underlying Rack handler (server) like Puma or WEBrick. Sinatra itself is thread-safe, so there won't be any problem if the Rack handler uses a threaded model of concurrency.
The following Ruby versions are officially supported:
- Ruby
- The stable releases are fully supported and recommended.
- TruffleRuby
- The latest stable release of TruffleRuby is supported.
- JRuby
- The latest stable release of JRuby is supported. It is not recommended to use C extensions with JRuby.
Versions of Ruby before 2.7.8 are no longer supported as of Sinatra 4.0.0.
Sinatra should work on any operating system supported by the chosen Ruby implementation.
Running Sinatra on a not officially supported Ruby flavor means that if things only break there we assume it's not our issue but theirs.
If you would like to use Sinatra's latest bleeding-edge code, feel free to run your application against the main branch, it should be rather stable.
We also push out prerelease gems from time to time, so you can do a
gem install sinatra --pre
to get some of the latest features.
If you want to run your application with the latest Sinatra, using Bundler is the recommended way.
First, install bundler, if you haven't:
gem install bundler
Then, in your project directory, create a Gemfile
:
source 'https://rubygems.org'
gem 'sinatra', :github => 'sinatra/sinatra'
# other dependencies
gem 'haml' # for instance, if you use haml
Note that you will have to list all your application's dependencies in
the Gemfile
. Sinatra's direct dependencies (Rack and Tilt) will,
however, be automatically fetched and added by Bundler.
Now you can run your app like this:
bundle exec ruby myapp.rb
Sinatra follows Semantic Versioning, both SemVer and SemVerTag.
- Project Website - Additional documentation, news, and links to other resources.
- Contributing - Find a bug? Need help? Have a patch?
- Issue tracker
- Mailing List
- IRC: #sinatra on Freenode
- Sinatra & Friends on Discord
- Sinatra Book - Cookbook Tutorial
- Sinatra Recipes - Community contributed recipes
- API documentation for the latest release or the current HEAD on RubyDoc
- CI Actions