Implementing Routing Concerns
This pattern was introduced as a plugin by @dhh. The original implementation can be found in https://github.com/rails/routing_concerns
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| @@ -909,7 +909,7 @@ module Resources | ||
| # CANONICAL_ACTIONS holds all actions that does not need a prefix or | ||
| # a path appended since they fit properly in their scope level. | ||
| VALID_ON_OPTIONS = [:new, :collection, :member] | ||
| - RESOURCE_OPTIONS = [:as, :controller, :path, :only, :except, :param] | ||
| + RESOURCE_OPTIONS = [:as, :controller, :path, :only, :except, :param, :concerns] | ||
| CANONICAL_ACTIONS = %w(index create new show update destroy) | ||
| class Resource #:nodoc: | ||
| @@ -1046,6 +1046,8 @@ def resource(*resources, &block) | ||
| resource_scope(:resource, SingletonResource.new(resources.pop, options)) do | ||
| yield if block_given? | ||
| + concerns(options[:concerns]) if options[:concerns] | ||
| + | ||
| collection do | ||
| post :create | ||
| end if parent_resource.actions.include?(:create) | ||
| @@ -1210,6 +1212,8 @@ def resources(*resources, &block) | ||
| resource_scope(:resources, Resource.new(resources.pop, options)) do | ||
| yield if block_given? | ||
| + concerns(options[:concerns]) if options[:concerns] | ||
| + | ||
| collection do | ||
| get :index if parent_resource.actions.include?(:index) | ||
| post :create if parent_resource.actions.include?(:create) | ||
| @@ -1580,15 +1584,33 @@ def name_for_action(as, action) #:nodoc: | ||
| end | ||
| end | ||
| + module Concerns | ||
|
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|
||
| + def concern(name, &block) | ||
| + @concerns[name] = block | ||
| + end | ||
| + | ||
| + def concerns(*names) | ||
| + names.flatten.each do |name| | ||
| + if concern = @concerns[name] | ||
| + instance_eval(&concern) | ||
| + else | ||
| + raise ArgumentError, "No concern named #{name} was found!" | ||
| + end | ||
| + end | ||
| + end | ||
| + end | ||
| + | ||
| def initialize(set) #:nodoc: | ||
| @set = set | ||
| @scope = { :path_names => @set.resources_path_names } | ||
| + @concerns = {} | ||
| end | ||
| include Base | ||
| include HttpHelpers | ||
| include Redirection | ||
| include Scoping | ||
| + include Concerns | ||
| include Resources | ||
| end | ||
| end | ||
| @@ -0,0 +1,94 @@ | ||
| +require 'abstract_unit' | ||
| + | ||
| +class CommentsController < ActionController::Base | ||
| + def index | ||
| + head :ok | ||
| + end | ||
| +end | ||
| + | ||
| +class ImageAttachmentsController < ActionController::Base | ||
| + def index | ||
| + head :ok | ||
| + end | ||
| +end | ||
| + | ||
| +class RoutingConcernsTest < ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest | ||
| + Routes = ActionDispatch::Routing::RouteSet.new.tap do |app| | ||
| + app.draw do | ||
| + concern :commentable do | ||
| + resources :comments | ||
| + end | ||
| + | ||
| + concern :image_attachable do | ||
| + resources :image_attachments, only: :index | ||
| + end | ||
| + | ||
| + resources :posts, concerns: [:commentable, :image_attachable] do | ||
| + resource :video, concerns: :commentable | ||
| + end | ||
| + | ||
| + resource :picture, concerns: :commentable do | ||
| + resources :posts, concerns: :commentable | ||
| + end | ||
| + | ||
| + scope "/videos" do | ||
| + concerns :commentable | ||
| + end | ||
| + end | ||
| + end | ||
| + | ||
| + include Routes.url_helpers | ||
| + def app; Routes end | ||
| + | ||
| + def test_accessing_concern_from_resources | ||
| + get "/posts/1/comments" | ||
| + assert_equal "200", @response.code | ||
| + assert_equal "/posts/1/comments", post_comments_path(post_id: 1) | ||
| + end | ||
| + | ||
| + def test_accessing_concern_from_resource | ||
| + get "/picture/comments" | ||
| + assert_equal "200", @response.code | ||
| + assert_equal "/picture/comments", picture_comments_path | ||
| + end | ||
| + | ||
| + def test_accessing_concern_from_nested_resource | ||
| + get "/posts/1/video/comments" | ||
| + assert_equal "200", @response.code | ||
| + assert_equal "/posts/1/video/comments", post_video_comments_path(post_id: 1) | ||
| + end | ||
| + | ||
| + def test_accessing_concern_from_nested_resources | ||
| + get "/picture/posts/1/comments" | ||
| + assert_equal "200", @response.code | ||
| + assert_equal "/picture/posts/1/comments", picture_post_comments_path(post_id: 1) | ||
| + end | ||
| + | ||
| + def test_accessing_concern_from_resources_with_more_than_one_concern | ||
| + get "/posts/1/image_attachments" | ||
| + assert_equal "200", @response.code | ||
| + assert_equal "/posts/1/image_attachments", post_image_attachments_path(post_id: 1) | ||
| + end | ||
| + | ||
| + def test_accessing_concern_from_resources_using_only_option | ||
| + get "/posts/1/image_attachment/1" | ||
| + assert_equal "404", @response.code | ||
| + end | ||
| + | ||
| + def test_accessing_concern_from_a_scope | ||
| + get "/videos/comments" | ||
| + assert_equal "200", @response.code | ||
| + end | ||
| + | ||
| + def test_with_an_invalid_concern_name | ||
| + e = assert_raise ArgumentError do | ||
| + ActionDispatch::Routing::RouteSet.new.tap do |app| | ||
| + app.draw do | ||
| + resources :posts, concerns: :foo | ||
| + end | ||
| + end | ||
| + end | ||
| + | ||
| + assert_equal "No concern named foo was found!", e.message | ||
| + end | ||
| +end |
91 comments
on commit 0dd2472
While this is cool, and abstracted well, do we really need it?
We already have methods:
YayApp::Application.routes.draw do
def add_posts
resources :posts, :only => [:create, :destroy]
end
resources :events do
add_posts
end
end
Is there an actual problem this is solving?
Why is this a module? I see it being included a single place and it clearly is heavily dependent on being included into this exact class because it has a data dependency on @concerns. I'd imagine it's not designed to be used anywhere else, so why bother?
Yes, can we make this not a module please! :-)
This has the danger of promoting bloated routes, as inappropriately large routes are added via a concern. This seems like a misunderstanding of what is meant by duplication.
@crankharder DSL is better and more cleaner Code than defining a Method!
I think it's just following the pattern already implemented in this mapper file, where a group of related methods are put together in a module, such as HttpMethods, Scoping, or Resources.
About @concerns, maybe the same could be said about the @scope variable that's being used everywhere inside the mapper (across different modules I think)? I believe it's initialized down there just to avoid the defined? call.
At the end, I think the module is not meant to be used anywhere else, it's just a way of grouping similar things together, so whatever you say :).
I agree the same could be said about all the instance variables there. Leaking the abstraction across is a reasonable flag that there is a problem here. You could certainly get away without a defined? call. Why not rely on the abstraction issue here to write the code a bit better.
But then, I think this is a horrible addition to the router that doesn't appear to be actually solving a problem, as well as poor code.
I think it's not leaking if the modules are not meant to be used elsewhere, or not? In any case, please feel free to suggest changes or put up a pull request improving the code, we'll be glad to help as possible.
ps: I'm not talking about the feature itself, but the mapper implementation, since I've never had this requirement so far
@timoschilling It's certainly more code.
I wonder if taking advantage of Ruby's open classes is a better approach for these types of issues. Instead of using different modules (which imply shared reusability) that are functionally and conceptually coupled together, one could instead have multiple files that re-open the same class to add in extra behavior. You get the same net effect of grouping methods but without the intent ambiguity that module's bring as baggage.
This isn't thought out and was just a spur of the moment idea, so it probably has flaws — but hell, maybe it doesn't.
Thoughts?
I'd like to come back to @crankharder's comment. How in the world is this better than using an actual Ruby mechanism: methods? Vague statements about DSL is better and cleaner code are hardly answers as to what makes this better. It actually is more opaque than just saying
def has_comments
resources :comments
end
resources :videos do
has_comments
end
I'm missing how renaming this to concerns adds value.
@carlosantoniodasilva I'd like to suggest the change that this be replaced by a convention of enacting reuse through Ruby's standard mechanism: methods. This feature does not appear to add anything other than renaming "method" to "concern" through a series of indirections.
Alright, fair enough. May I ask you to use the Ruby on Rails Core mailing list to ask for feedback on this, linking this commit and the related comments, so we can gather more feedback there. Thanks.
Sent. Thanks.
We write languages for a problem space such that solutions may, in that language, be readable, concise, and elegant.
Then we write solutions to our problems, and we write our solutions in these tailored languages. That way, our solutions turn out to be the most readable, concise, and elegant that they can possibly be.
That is why there exists a routing DSL to begin with, and why it was improved for Rails 3.
I can't get behind a change like this. This isn't even syntactic sugar. It's more like syntactic aspartame. It might slim down your code, but it's also a carcinogen.
This pattern of adding abstractions that aren't self-explanatory just adds to the specialized dialect needed to read Rails code, when anyone who can read Ruby would understand methods... it's... concerning.
@yfeldblum This is hardly a case of what you are talking about. The routing DSL has a certain elegance to it. It deals with items in the domain of routing: resources, map, etc. This, however, takes a separate idea "concerns" and shoe-horns it in. There is no "concern" concept in the domain of routing.
I'm not a big fan of this but I'm not so caremad that I'd want it removed, however it's basically syntactic sugar for this:
commentable = lambda do
resources :comments
end
resources :posts do
nested &commentable
end
resources :articles do
nested &commentable
endIn fact using lambdas is more flexible as they can be passed to any of the mapper methods like namespace - see this Stack Overflow question.
I also dislike this change. I would probably be more happy with code example by @pixeltrix rather than concern in my routes file because I can understand how it works without reading documentation.
I've seen one project recently where I think this may have come in handy:
There were a ton of "concerns" that were spread across varying degrees of nested-ness, in which some of the final routes were not the same, but should have been. In this case, I think the mess would have been around anyway because there was so little care or thought put into it I'm doubtful concerns would have been used.
@yfeldblum mentions
We write languages for a problem space such that solutions may, in that language, be readable, concise, and elegant.
That's a laudable goal, but I don't know if this gets us there. "Concern" in my opinion is a terrible name for it. I understand it from an aspect-oriented programming jargon standpoint, but I don't think that's what it should be called here. On the other hand, I don't have a better name to offer. 
Most of the examples show :concerns as an option. But can it be called inside the block too? I ask because I think that would be a more readable place for it.
On the surface of it, I kind of like the idea. But I'm not sure if it's worth the risk in additional effort the maintainers will endure. Since I'm not one, I have no bone to pick either way, but I'd be interested to hear contributors' opinions on this aspect.
+1 for @pixeltrix example
@codeodor Often times, when we find a need for something like this, it really should be an indication that there is a design issue with the routes. This seems to be a case where a helper is created to mask a flaw with highly nested routes.
coming here. This adds an overkill feature. It was fine as a gem to me, and should have stayed that way.
This seems to me like one of those things that should remain a gem. As @pixeltrix and others have demonstrated, this can be achieved using plain Ruby, today, in a readable way -- more importantly, in a way that is immediately approachable by someone who understands Ruby. No need to go check the Rails docs the first time the user encounters this syntax, since it's just a lambda or method definition.
If a team wants to use it, however, more power to them, use the gem.
Lots of things in Rails can be achieved by using "plain Ruby". That's not the standard of which I decide whether to add a feature to Rails or not. Before/after code is the standard.
Here's the before using methods:
BCX::Application.routes.draw do
def commentable do
resources :comments
end
def trashable do
post :trash, :restore, on: :member
end
def image_attachable do
resources :image_attachments, only: :index
end
resources :calendar_events do
commentable
get :past, on: :collection
end
resources :messages, :forwards, :uploads, :documents, :todos do
commentable
end
resources :projects, concerns: :trashable, defaults: { bucket_type: 'project' } do
resources :messages, :uploads, :comments do
trashable
image_attachable
resources :forwards do
trashable
image_attachable
get :content, on: :member
end
end
end
endHere's the after using concerns:
BCX::Application.routes.draw do
concern :commentable do
resources :comments
end
concern :trashable do
post :trash, :restore, on: :member
end
concern :image_attachable do
resources :image_attachments, only: :index
end
resources :calendar_events, concerns: :commentable do
get :past, on: :collection
end
resources :messages, :forwards, :uploads, :documents, :todos, concerns: :commentable
resources :projects, concerns: :trashable, defaults: { bucket_type: 'project' } do
resources :messages, :uploads, :comments, concerns: [:trashable, :image_attachable]
resources :forwards, concerns: [:trashable, :image_attachable] do
get :content, on: :member
end
end
endBenefits:
Defining methods inside the draw DSL is a visual wart that doesn't fit with the rest of the flow.
The method calls do not signify what's going on when just looking at the call itself. What's this call going to do? The concern clearly marks this as "extra, shared routes being mixed into the resource".
The use and the word concern is consistent with its use for models and controllers. Concerns for resources are about sharing roles, like Trashable, Commentable, and ImageAttachable. In fact, we have controller or model concerns with the very same name in the Basecamp code base. Thus parity is established, the domain language is reused, and its imminently clear that there's a line to be traced throughout the code base.
The concern syntax allows you to declare multiple on a single line. This is especially nice when you have 2, 3, or more, like we do in the Basecamp code base.
Feel free to suggest alternative implementations, but the feature stays and so does the name.
Also, if you in general don't like the word concern, you're going to be in for a bad time. We're adding a default place for model and controller concerns to live in the directory structure shortly.
I find concerns to be a wonderful addition to the domain language and a key building block for making beautiful Rails applications. So we will spread that beauty far and wide.
And conversation is shut down. Shame.
And, yes, if this is the direction Rails is going, and with a history of working with teams trying to maintain their applications after use of these "features", I agree that we're going to be in for a bad time. Thanks for taking part in the conversation, David.
Also, if you in general don't like the word concern, you're going to be in for a bad time. We're adding a default place for model and controller concerns to live in the directory structure shortly.
I find concerns to be a wonderful addition to the domain language and a key building block for making beautiful Rails applications. So we will spread that beauty far and wide.
That's why I think naming this feature a concern, too, might be confusing. It's better than base, though.
So "the direction Rails is going" is entirely unchanged from 2003, in terms of the philosophical underpinnings. You're of course free to dislike individual features and if you want to keep talking about that here, that's fine too. But maybe leave the drama violins on the shelve.
@coreyhaines, that's obviously where we disagree. I think this leads to a much better design. It's beautiful, it's dry, and it fits into the larger story arc of concerns in other parts of the code. I hope people start using concerns to trace those same lines through their domain model as they adopt Rails 4. Let dozen of concerns bloom!
I like the consistency it introduces with modules that extend ActiveSupport::Concern. But the example shown by @dhh is not much shorter and I don't see much added value over just using subresource-adding methods. Is anybody really working with a codebase where using the new concerns syntax would shorten the routing file significantly? (as in: having large amount of orthogonal concerns)
I also disagree. Quickly scanning the two BCX example routes. I can immediately see what the first one is doing, the methods are highlighted and I can see where they are being included. In the second example the concerns blend in very easily with the other routes and it takes me longer to scan and see how the routes are working. New users would also have to be familiar with what the concern method does.
Although a shorter routes file is nice, using methods is much easier to read and reduces the need for extra code to handle this.
@dhh True, this is a fundamental disagreement. I work with teams that are struggling to keep a level of productivity up in large part due to heavy reliance on these sorts of features (for example, currently cleaning up a codebase that is mired in ActiveSupport::Concern for no good reason at all, when including a module was what they wanted). I wouldn't say they've abused these features, they just relied on them. Then the codebase becomes rigid and adding new features is more difficult as their ability to get any feedback on the effect of the changes starts to drop significantly. As more parts of the system become heavily coupled to the other parts, I've seen more than one codebase calcify.
I appreciate that your specific use of this feature may have convinced you it is useful, and that is a wonderful reason to write a gem for it; that's one of the great things about the Rails ecosystem. There are a lot of us who appreciated the apparent shift in Rails 3 towards a more modular design, rather than taking specific use cases and baking them into the core. For people who run into the case where they have a tremendous number of repeated routes, they can choose to use this gem.
I think our fundamental disagreement stems from the fact that I, based on my work with various teams, consider Rails a nice set of conventions, a fantastic routing system and a very useful ORM. I believe (based on comments you've made, but I could be wrong) that you consider it more all-encompassing than that. The teams I've worked with who have treated it as the whole environment see their productivity significantly drop due to the high coupling between the different parts, starting after a number of months, then dramatically after year one, in general. As I sit with teams, I don't find they've "abused" the features, they simply used them. This experience is what has caused a lot of us to start talking about alternate ways to write long-term maintainable applications with Rails.
As we've both said, there is a fundamental disagreement between us based on our own personal experiences with building Rails applications and working with teams who are building their businesses with Rails-based applications. As with everything, people's mileage may vary depending on how they choose to build.
@dhh I don't think, given the general tone of your response, that any alternative provided will receive serious consideration. That being said, I'm going to post one, anyway -- it doesn't really address the spirit of the assertions that @coreyhaines, @pixeltrix and others are making, but it does at least make some lemonade out of the given lemons.
The general problem of this, with the ruby implementation looks very similar to memoizable, which has been deprecated in favor of ruby's internal memoization.
If things like this can get removed because ruby allows to do the same very easily, why include concerns at all ?
Reposing since the conversation is happening here:
@dhh At a minimum, it allows us to shorten the routes file considerably by moving concerns out into their own separate files (not shown here).
That would seem to pass the basic before/after test you're proposing. leading to a header in the routes file that read like:
concerns :commentable, Commentable
concerns :reviewable, ReviewableConcern.new(some: 'initializaton params')With a minor modification, it could also eliminate the need for the second parameter altogether, via the same classifying logic as is used elsewhere.
Beyond this, there is strong preference in the Ruby community for implementations that allow duck-typed objects to be swapped in where appropriate.
Consider the differences between CarrierWave and Paperclip, for instance. The former allows for much more idiomatic separation of code, reducing the amount of noise we have to read through in order to parse the basics, and points us to a specific location to find out more should we so choose.
It's less about simplifying the writing of the code (though some would argue that anything that allows us to break things into a separate object if we so want will be a win) and more about a further "improvement" to readability, if we're going to go down this route. (pun not intended, but awesome)
Reposted the reply as well:
But if you look at the actual use cases this was extracted from, they don't justify an external class. They're too small. They're usually just a single line or two. Moving them into their own classes and putting those classes outside of the routing.rb file doesn't clarify things in my mind.
This has similarities to the "actions should be classes" debate. I don't think they should. There's not enough there to justify it and it makes things harder to follow.
Again, though, I very much appreciate this level of debate, Ernie. It's focused around real code alternatives, so it's concrete. Not abstract, hand-wavy "I've seen teams use this wrong!" kind of arguments. Thank you for that.
I don't particularly care about the 'accepts a class' bit, but Validations now work this way: custom class, symbol that references a method name, or a block.
@dhh Maybe -- my gut feeling is that since this doesn't break the previous style of usage, at all, it's a net positive.
I don't have time to write up additional code examples, but I'm thinking that developers of engines may find it useful.
At the very least, it allows us to intelligently select the controller (and therefore, associated view files, and on down the line) that handles the comment functionality, without having to use a separate concern, reducing the working vocabulary of the application reflected in the routes file to only the level of detail necessary.
It's also important to note that by accepting a callable, we aren't limited to only classes, but any object responding to call, generated by any means we deem appropriate. I used a class that had a class method in the test only because that was the most expedient way to show the functionality.
@coreyhaines "I have seen teams misusing features" is not an argument against adding features in my view. Sometimes people misuse stuff, sometimes people just do not know what does Rails offer. That is normal, and it is the consultant's job to help teams tune their Rails skills.
New features have to be discussed by their own merits.
Corey's argument is not "I've seen teams mis-use this feature" it's that "A team that uses this feature ends up regretting it.":
As I sit with teams, I don't find they've "abused" the features, they simply used them.
@steveklabnik - Either way, what @fxn stated still stands: Sometimes people mis-use stuff. Isn't that the responsibility of the developer using the framework, to understand what the framework offers and then make the best decisions - architecturally or otherwise?
I can bet that even if it was designed as @coreyhaines would prefer that people would still mis-use it. There is no silver bullet.
Sure, but since we're not talking about people mis-using a feature, then it's irrelevant.
@steveklabnik Corey mentions misuses of AS::Concern as an example to depict what he means. It is not just that people use the features of Rails, of course people use them! Or do you build Rails applications to write CGI scripts?
@steveklabnik - the regret of teams using a feature is because they mis-used it in the first place. I have examples of this, too. It is relevant according to @coreyhaines. The documentation/guides describe how the feature works - not prescribe how a team or individual should use it. That's up to the individual or team to do their own research. Rails can't continue to be built with safety nets everywhere because people might mis-use it and then later regret it.
@nateklaiber What Corey proposes however is not doing anything and leaving things as-is, since you could use method or lambdas right now for this.
New features have to be discussed by their own merits.
@fnx Agreed.
In this particular case, however, I don't see how this adds anything more than (slight) bloat to the framework and a DSL for the sake of having a DSL. This adds complexity, even if it isn't much compared to the framework as a whole. It means newcomers have to learn "one more thing", and adds more code to maintain and debug.
That said, I'm not the one calling the shots here, and it's clear that no matter how many arguments people come up with against the feature, the feature will stay. So let's just move on and do productive stuff :)
@nateklaiber I think there's some room for a distinction to be made between "features" and "tasty treats that happen to be sitting on a mousetrap." I'm pretty sure @coreyhaines was talking about the latter.
In this case @dhh had a pain and he solved it in BCX using the given technique . While others are thinking it will cause more problems and they might be right. However they have not used this new feature while @ddh put it to use and he liked it.
So as Jason will say "give it 5 minutes" http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3124-give-it-five-minutes
@foca - Isn't that a slippery slope, though? Why use Rails at all then - if you could just use Ruby method or lambdas? In this case, it seems to come down to taste. You could argue that things added from Rails 1.X until now have been adding slight bloat and complexity. It's an evolution of the framework.
@ernie - I agree that I am both sides of the fence, too. Personally, I am more leaning towards it being a gem.
Can you protect developers from "tasty treats that happen to be sitting on a mousetrap" - that is an individual developer thing. It's a level of professionalism and knowledge. People can mess up plain Ruby, too, based on their mis-understandings. That argument just doesn't sit well with me as it's not something a framework or language will ever solve.
@neerajdotname I don't think anyone is arguing that @dhh didn't solve a problem by using this. It's more of a discussion as to why this needs to be in rails-core.
Unless I missed it, I haven't see a real reason as to why it needs to be in core other than "I said so".
@revans I think @dhh nicely described why it needs to be in core. The main argument is that rails is a collection of best practices. If a particular way of doing thing is on the fringe and it should not be mainstream then it should not be in core. Case in point is ActiveResource. It used to be core but now it is a plugin.
On the flip side strong_parameters started as a plugin but it is a better solution than attr_accessible so attr_accessible is moving to plugin and strong_parameters is coming from plugin to core.
Same argument can be made about asset pipeline. When it landed there was a strong voice that it should be left as plugin. However there were enough good things in it to bring it to core.
I think we should give credit to rails core team for not only bringing new features to core but also for retiring features that do not justify to be in core. Many things like ActiveResource , RJS, rails api, attr_accessible have been removed from core. Yes rails api code was merged to master and it was removed before the release.
So just because something is in master do not think it will never go out of core. As I said ( or as Jason said ) give it 5 minutes and if it is not worthy its weight it will go out.
And just like coffeescript debate you do not have to use it. Rails is a collection of features. Use the features that you like.
@dhh I understand that. I've been a long time user of Rails and have enjoyed those benefits.
Other than your use case, I am not aware (admittedly, I haven't gone looking either) of others. So for the reason as to why this needs to be in core, hasn't been apparent to me. If it's as simple as a pattern you like, I get it. Not sure I agree it needs to be in core, but it's your baby.
The concepts of code reuse, DRY-ness, and describing such succinctly and clearly, are all good ones. This change encourages everyone to do more of these, and to do it better. So adding concerns to the router is a good thing.
Sure people have always been able to do it in slightly longer more verbose ways, and they still can if they choose. I'm speaking of defining methods here, if you have a large app with a lot of modular pieces, those "few lines" longer can really add up. I for one will be switching to concerns because then I know I'm safe in not stepping on any previously-defined methods any longer (I'm losing enough hair as it is without debugging that)...
Also the way things can nest now has encouraged more code reuse in rails 3, compared to rails 2. This concerns thing is just more evolution of the same.
I agree with @revans, shouldn't it be a gem?
Defining methods inside the draw DSL is a visual wart that doesn't fit with the rest of the flow.
That's true. By using 1.9 lambda syntax, though, it could start to look nicer perhaps. E.g.: commentable = ->{ resources :comments } .. and you could then support both methods of inclusion, whether through a concerns: commentable argument or with the @pixeltrix approach.
Noticed a flaw in the method alternative that was suggested initially. Calling a method defined in the top of a route set will generate resources from the context the method was defined in -- in other words, it will not know about its current mapper when adding resources, or any scoping.
Also fixed a flaw in my alternative implementation that suffered from a similar issue -- it wasn't caught in the existing tests, which weren't checking for context.
With #7422, we'd have the option of doing:
concern :commentable do
resources :comments
enddef commentable(mapper)
mapper.resources :comments
end
concern :commentable, method(:commentable)or, for something that just shouldn't be in the routes file:
# Separate file
class PurchasableConcern
RETURNABLES = Departments.map(&:name) - %w(pets electronics)
def self.call(mapper)
mapper.resources :purchases
mapper.resources :receipts
mapper.resources :returns if RETURNABLES.include?(mapper.current_scope[:controller])
end
end
# routes.rb
concern :purchasable, PurchasableConcernWe gain the ability to behave differently based on the scope we're in using all fo these options, but I wouldn't think it would make sense except in the last case, since the idea would be to make the routes more readable by saying that something was something-able, and not delve into the specific implementation unless someone wanted to go looking for it.
Disclaimer: none of this should be construed to indicate that I think this is a sound idea at the fundamental level, but if we're gonna do it, then we should try to at least get some code separation options out of it.
@yfeldblum concerns would be defined outside the resource that uses them, then reused, so not quite like your example shows. That being said, it'd be trivial to allow concerns to accept options, and I like the idea of passing in options (telling) instead of the callable asking about the current scope of the mapper. Callables really shouldn't be asking about the mapper's scope as much as reacting to options like returnable: true. Updating PR to reflect that.
OK, updated #7422 accordingly. Added better documentation, as well. I think the documentation outlines the use case pretty well, so including here:
concern - Define a routing concern using a name.
Concerns may be defined inline, using a block, or handled by
another object, by passing that object as the second parameter.
The concern object, if supplied, should respond to call,
which will receive two parameters:
- The current mapper
- A hash of options which the concern object may use
Options may also be used by concerns defined in a block by accepting
a block parameter. So, using a block, you might do something as
simple as limit the actions available on certain resources, passing
standard resource options through the concern:
concern :commentable do |options|
resources :comments, options
end
resources :posts, concerns: :commentable
resources :archived_posts do
# Don't allow comments on archived posts
concerns :commentable, only: [:index, :show]
endOr, using a callable object, you might implement something more
specific to your application, which would be out of place in your
routes file.
# purchasable.rb
class Purchasable
def initialize(defaults = {})
@defaults = defaults
end
def call(mapper, options = {})
options = @defaults.merge(options)
mapper.resources :purchases
mapper.resources :receipts
mapper.resources :returns if options[:returnable]
end
end
# routes.rb
concern :purchasable, Purchasable.new(returnable: true)
resources :toys, concerns: :purchasable
resources :electronics, concerns: :purchasable
resources :pets do
concerns :purchasable, returnable: false
endAny routing helpers can be used inside a concern. If using a
callable, they're accessible from the Mapper that's passed to
call.
Additionally (and @josevalim would be able to better confirm/deny this than me) it seems as a change like this would enable much of Devise's mapping code (https://github.com/plataformatec/devise/blob/master/lib/devise/mapping.rb) to be handled by an Authenticatable concern against a users resource.
If not directly applicable to Devise, it would certainly be a worthwhile hook for other authentication implementations.
To me:
concern :authenticatable, MyAuthenticationThing.new(some: 'opts')
resources :users
concerns :authenticatable, authentication_methods: [:token, :password]
endwould be preferable to using macros to deliver similar functionality.
My only... worry... about @ernie's implementation is the location of the concern file. I don't think that dumping it in the lib would be a great idea, much like dumping anything in lib is not a great idea.
What would the convention be for these concern files? lib/concerns/purchasable.rb? config/routing/purchasable.rb?
I suggest moving routes to app/routes if possible. After all, they aren't really config: they are actually the top-level interface to your application, mapping HTTP requests to the classes and methods that handle these requests.
There is also certainly a need in larger applications to split up routes files in general, because they can grow to hundreds of lines or more with multiple groups of routes that are internally related but which do not relate strongly to each other. This need applies to the concept of routing concerns, but it's also a general need even for routes files which don't have any concerns.
@dhh In the case of BCX, it seems like the routing there is more amenable to concerns. But there are other applications where there is just a lot of routing and not very much commonality at all (and where attempting to impose commonality is dumb). Redmine's config/routes.rb, for example, has about 300 lines of routing code. I think a good DSL for that case would hit the spot for those large applications with lots of routing but not much commonality.
MyApp::Application.routes.draw do
# includes routes from app/routes/storefront_routes.rb which has 200 lines
draw_routes "storefront"
# includes routes from app/routes/admin_routes.rb which has 150 lines
draw_routes "admin"
# includes routes from app/routes/helpdesk_routes.rb which has 50 lines
draw_routes "helpdesk"
end
@dhh OK, here's a situation, extracted from a slightly-modified case in an old app.
When you're doing things that involve social interactions, you end up with tons of comments, abuse flags, subscriptions, likes, and so on. A bunch of these are actually more or less toggleable on/off switches for users, and could probably inherit from the same controller. A preference of mine is to avoid trying to iterate through params looking for a likely suspect when it comes to a polymorphic relationship's nested resources, and instead specify the base, directly, so that I can find the "-able" without putting undue trust in user-submitted params.
This leads to a pattern like:
Some::Application.routes.draw do
resources :posts do
resources :likes, base: 'post'
resources :flags, base: 'post'
resources :subscriptions, base: 'post'
resources :comments, base: 'post' do
resources :likes, base: 'comment'
resources :flags, base: 'comment'
end
end
resources :photos do
resources :likes, base: 'photo'
resources :flags, base: 'photo'
resources :comments, base: 'photo' do
resources :likes, base: 'comment'
resources :flags, base: 'comment'
end
end
endWhich only gets more unmanageable over time. With my patch, this is the after:
class SociallyInteractable
def initialize(*resource_list)
@resource_list = resource_list
end
def call(mapper, options)
filtered_resources(options).each do |res|
mapper.instance_eval do
resources res, base: @scope[:controller].singularize do
if res == :comments
concerns :socially_interactable, only: [:likes, :flags]
end
end
end
end
end
def filtered_resources(options)
if options[:except]
@resource_list - Array(options[:except])
elsif options[:only]
@resource_list & Array(options[:only])
else
@resource_list
end
end
end
Some::Application.routes.draw do
concern :socially_interactable,
SociallyInteractable.new(:likes, :flags, :subscriptions, :comments)
resources :posts do
concerns :socially_interactable
end
resources :photos do
concerns :socially_interactable, except: :subscriptions
end
end
Btw, @ernie, I'm curious as to what insight lead you to switch from "This isn't even syntactic sugar. It's more like syntactic aspartame. It might slim down your code, but it's also a carcinogen" to extending and improving the feature. It seems like the SociallyInteractable extraction you just based your extension off does indeed materially cut down on the complexity of the sample routes.rb file. I take it that you see this as a good thing, ye?
(I'm not being I'm-told-you-so, I'm genuinely interested in learning what argument or insight made you change your position. We have more stuff coming in the vain of concerns for Rails 4, so I'd like to present those changes with the most effective and persuasive arguments.)
@dhh I'm of the strong opinion that these types of changes should do what they can to:
- Allow for idioms that have become second-nature to Rubyists (in this case, duck-typing with #call, in a similar vein as Rack)
- Enable and encourage developers to extract reusable code into easily-testable components. Writing a unit test for the logic being used in SociallyInteractable, above, is simple. The fact that my first implementation (and the method suggestions in this thread) were actually fundamentally broken when it came to nested resources but were not caught by the test suite nor any of those giving them +1s is an indication, to me, that this stuff can be tricky to test, without simply testing each and every path in a routes file. Better to be able to test the logic used to generate the paths, if possible.
- Related to the first two, really. Where possible, I'd love to see us continue the trend toward modularity we saw in Rails 3, with Rails 4. One way to continue to move in this direction is to adhere to SOLID principles as we build features. I believe that my patch moves us further in that direction, defining a clear API that one must adhere to if one wants to behave as a concern, and then allowing objects to be substituted, Liskov-style, according to that API.
As I see it, the previous implementation did not address those goals, and for no good reason, as far as I could tell.
I can't speak for @coreyhaines, and I know he has since checked out of this thread, but I think that would probably summarize at least part of his position, no doubt less eloquently as he would, himself.
@dhh I didn't really think I was spewing venom, for my part, but I was passionate. Clearly, my words were offensive, so I apologize -- particularly if that offense has led to a steeper-than-necessary climb to merge.
My comment was directly related to a concern about the previous implementation, which seemed like the addition of indirection using a less idiomatic means that would be trickier to understand, at first glance. I wouldn't have known that the concern was a declaration, since the convention of other blocks within the routes.rb DSL is to define routes on the spot.
In the previous implementation, the reader is unlikely to know what it is that they are seeing, at first glance. Is the concern a top-level entity like a mapping? Is it a declaration of something else? When does the code get invoked?
My PR was an attempt to partially right that perceived (correctly or incorrectly) wrong, by allowing us to use a syntax when declaring a concern that is more obviously a statement that we are assigning a name to a reusable component.
I think (hope) that the adjustments I am suggesting would make these things more clear, to more people.
Why is this a module? I see it being included a single place and it clearly is heavily dependent on being included into this exact class because it has a data dependency on @concerns. I'd imagine it's not designed to be used anywhere else, so why bother?
Yes, can we make this not a module please! :-)
I think it's just following the pattern already implemented in this mapper file, where a group of related methods are put together in a module, such as
HttpMethods,Scoping, orResources.About
@concerns, maybe the same could be said about the@scopevariable that's being used everywhere inside the mapper (across different modules I think)? I believe it's initialized down there just to avoid thedefined?call.At the end, I think the module is not meant to be used anywhere else, it's just a way of grouping similar things together, so whatever you say :).
I agree the same could be said about all the instance variables there. Leaking the abstraction across is a reasonable flag that there is a problem here. You could certainly get away without a defined? call. Why not rely on the abstraction issue here to write the code a bit better.
But then, I think this is a horrible addition to the router that doesn't appear to be actually solving a problem, as well as poor code.
I think it's not leaking if the modules are not meant to be used elsewhere, or not? In any case, please feel free to suggest changes or put up a pull request improving the code, we'll be glad to help as possible.
ps: I'm not talking about the feature itself, but the mapper implementation, since I've never had this requirement so far
I wonder if taking advantage of Ruby's open classes is a better approach for these types of issues. Instead of using different modules (which imply shared reusability) that are functionally and conceptually coupled together, one could instead have multiple files that re-open the same class to add in extra behavior. You get the same net effect of grouping methods but without the intent ambiguity that module's bring as baggage.
This isn't thought out and was just a spur of the moment idea, so it probably has flaws — but hell, maybe it doesn't.
Thoughts?
@carlosantoniodasilva I'd like to suggest the change that this be replaced by a convention of enacting reuse through Ruby's standard mechanism: methods. This feature does not appear to add anything other than renaming "method" to "concern" through a series of indirections.
Alright, fair enough. May I ask you to use the Ruby on Rails Core mailing list to ask for feedback on this, linking this commit and the related comments, so we can gather more feedback there. Thanks.
Sent. Thanks.