RCAV + CRUD

Introduction

The goal of this project is to understand how to allow users to generate data for our database tables through their browsers. To do this, you will write one complete database-backed web CRUD resource.

We just need to put together everything we've learned about RCAV with everything we've learned about CRUDing models with Ruby.

Every web application is nothing more than a collection of related resources that users can CRUD, so understanding how each of these operations works on one table is essential. For example, Twitter allows a user to

• sign up (create a row in the users table)
• edit profile (update his or her row in the users table)
• tweet (create a row in the statuses table)
• delete a tweet (destroy that row in the statuses table)
• I believe Twitter doesn't allow you to edit a tweet, so they don't support a route to trigger an update action for a row in the statuses table
• follow/unfollow other users (create / destroy a row in the followings table)
• favorite/unfavorite a tweet (create / destroy a row in the favorites table)
• etc.

At the most basic level, for every interaction we want to support, we have make up a URL that will trigger a controller action which performs that interaction.

Then we need to give the users a way to visit that URL (there's only two ways: either a link or a form submit button which point to that URL).

For each web resource, we usually support seven actions (with some exceptions, like Twitter not supporting editing of tweets). The Golden Seven actions are:

Create

• new_form: displays a blank form to the user
• create_row: receives info from the new form and inserts a row into the table

Read

• index: displays a list of multiple rows
• show: displays the details of one row

Update

• edit_form: displays a pre-populated form to the user with existing data
• update_row: receives info from the edit form and updates a row in the table

Delete

• destroy: removes a row from the table

Let's get started.

The Target

To start with, we'll keep it simple and manage just one resource: photos. Our goal is to build an app that lets users submit URLs of photos and add captions for them.

Eventually, we'll add the ability to sign up, upload photos, and follow other users, and we'll wind up building Instagram. But for now, anonymous visitors will simply copy-paste the URLs of images that are already on the Internet.

Setup

1. Read the instructions completely.
2. Clone this repository.
3. cd in to the application's root folder.
4. bundle install
5. rake db:migrate (I have already written the instructions to create a table to store photos for you, but you still need to do this to execute the instructions)
6. rake db:seed (This command will pre-populate your table with a few rows, so that you can get straight to work. If you are interested, you can see how I did it in /db/seeds.rb.)
7. rails server
8. Open up the code in Sublime.

READ (index, show)

Once you run through the setup, you will already have a table created called photos that has two columns in it: source (where we'll store the URL of each photo), and caption. I wrote the migration to create this table for you, and added the model file, so you don't need to worry about that step.

I have also already added two routes:

get("/photos",     { :controller => "photos", :action => "index" })
get("/photos/:id", { :controller => "photos", :action => "show" })

(as well as a route for the bare domain, which also goes to the index action). The first one is to let users see a list of all photos if they visit

http://localhost:3000/photos

Click this link -- you'll see that I have already completed the RCAV. Follow it through and make sure you understand what is going on at each step.

Notice that there are already a few photos in the table -- I wrote some Ruby to pre-populate your table with a few rows, so that you can get straight to work, and you ran it when you did rake db:seed. If you like, you can go into your rails console and add a few more photos of your choosing, by using your CRUD with Ruby skills. The index page will grow as you do this.

Under each photo on the index page, there is a link labeled "Show". The hrefs for these links look like:

• http://localhost:3000/photos/1
• http://localhost:3000/photos/2
• http://localhost:3000/photos/3
• http://localhost:3000/photos/4

Your first job is to make these URLs work to display a photo details page for each individual photo. In particular, in the show action, use the number after the slash to retrieve the row from the photo table with the corresponding id, and use that row's source value to draw the <img> in the view. Toss in the caption, too.

Hints: Remember your Ruby CRUD Cheatsheet, and what you know about the params hash.

CREATE (new_form, create_row)

We're now done with the "R" in CRUD. Our users can Read individual rows and collections of rows from our photos table. But they still have to depend on us to create the data in the first place, through the Rails console or something.

Let's now attack the "C" in CRUD: Create. We want to allow users to generate content for our applications; that is almost always where the greatest value lies.

new_form

The first step is: let's give the user a form to type some stuff in to. Add the following route:

get("/photos/new", { :controller => "photos", :action => "new_form" })

This action has a very simple job: draw a blank form in the user's browser for them to type some stuff into.

It's been a while since we've done any forms, but let's shake off the rust and recall our Essential HTML (refer to that repository if you need to) to craft a form for a photo with two inputs: one for the image's URL and one for a caption. Complete the RCAV and add the following HTML in the view:

<h1>Add A New photo</h1>

<form>
  <div>
    <label for="photo_caption">Caption:</label>
    <input id="photo_caption" type="text" name="the_caption">
  </div>
  <div>
    <label for="photo_image_url">Image URL:</label>
    <input id="photo_image_url" type="text" name="the_source">
  </div>
  <div>
    <input type="submit" value="Create photo">
  </div>
</form>

It turns out that forms, when submitted, take the values that users type in to the inputs and add them to the request. However, they do it by tacking them on to the end of the URL after a ?, in what is called a query string.

"Query string" is HTTP's name for a list of key/value pairs. The keys are the names of the <input> tags, and the values are what the user typed.

In Ruby, we call a list of key/value pairs a Hash. Same thing, different notation. So

?sport=football&color=purple

in a URL would translate into something like

{ :sport => "football", :color => "purple" }

in Ruby.

Why do we care? Well, it turns out that Rails does exactly that translation when it sees a query string show up on the end of one of our URLs.

Rails ignores the query string as far as routing is concerned, and still sends the request to same action... but it puts the extra information from the form into the params hash for us!

Alright, we're getting close... there's only one problem left. When a user clicks submit on the form, we probably don't want to go right back to the new_form action again. That action's job was to draw the blank form on the screen, and we're right back where we started.

We need a way to pick a different URL to send the data to when the user clicks the submit button. If we could do that, then we could set up a route for that URL, and then in the action for that route, we could pluck the information the user typed from the params hash and use it to create a new row in our table.

Fortunately, we can very easily pick which URL receives the data from a form: it is determined by adding an action attribute to the <form> tag, like so:

<form action="http://localhost:3000/create_photo">

Think of the action attribute as being like the href attribute of the <a> tag. It determines where the user is sent after they click. The only difference between a form and a link is that when the user clicks a form, some extra data comes along for the ride, but either way, the user is sent to a new URL.

Of course, because we haven't set up a route to support "/create_photo". Let's do that:

create_row

get("/create_photo", { :controller => "photos", :action => "create_row" })

Add the action and view for that route. Put some static HTML in the view for now.

Your next job is to write some Ruby in the create action to:

• create a new row for the photos table
• fill in its column values by pulling the information the user typed into the form out of the params hash
• save it

Once done, display a confirmation message that the information was saved in the view template.

DELETE (destroy)

Under each photo on the index page, there is a link labeled "Delete". The markup for these links look like:

<a href="http://localhost:3000/delete_photo/<%= photo.id %>">Delete</a>

Does it make sense how that link is being put together?

When I click that link, the photo should be removed and I should be shown a confirmation message.

Write a route, action, and view to make that happen. To start you off, here's a route:

get("/delete_photo/:id", { :controller => "photos", :action => "destroy" })

UPDATE (edit_form, update_row)

edit_form

Under each photo on the index page, there is a link labeled "Edit". The markup for these links look like:

<a href="http://localhost:3000/photos/<%= photo.id %>/edit">Edit</a>

Add a route to support this action:

get("/photos/:id/edit", { :controller => "photos", :action => "edit_form" })

The job of this action should be to display a form to edit an existing photo, somewhat like the new_form action.

It's a little more complicated than new_form, though, because instead of showing a blank form, you should show a form that's pre-populated with the current values for a particular photo (determined by what's after the slash).

Hint: You can pre-fill an <input> with the value="" attribute; e.g.,

<input type="text" name="the_caption" value="<%= @photo.caption %>">

The action attributes of your edit forms should look like this:

<form action="http://localhost:3000/update_photo/4">

so that when the user clicks submit, we can finally do the work of updating our database...

update_row

Add another route:

get("/update_photo/:id", { :controller => "photos", :action => "update_row" })

The job of this action is to receive data from an edit form, retrieve the corresponding row from the table, and update it with the revised information. Give it a shot. Afterwards, display a confirmation message in the view.

Conclusion

If we can connect all these dots, we will have completed one entire database-backed CRUD web resource. Every web application is essentially just a collection of multiple of these resources; they are the building blocks of everything we do, and we'll just cruise from here.

Struggle with it; come up with questions.

Optional challenge, for fun:

Connect Bootstrap or a Bootswatch and make the index page look similar to this, but without the user avatars and comments.