The Merb Way

Foreword xix Acknowledgments xxi Merb pastie xxiii Introduction xxvii About the author xxxi Chapter 1: Fundamentals 1 1.1 Generating a new application 1 1.2 The layout of a Merb application 2 1.3 Interactive Merb 9 1.4 Merb configuration 12 1.5 Understanding the Merb stack 20 1.6 An overview of Merb internals 27 1.7 Conclusion 35 Chapter 2: Routing 37 2.1 How Merb routing works 38 2.2 Router configuration 43 2.3 Checking routes 45 2.4 Match rules 50 2.5 Registering routes 54 2.6 Other route settings 57 2.7 Resource routes 60 2.8 Conclusion 64 Chapter 3: Controllers 65 3.1 From request to controller 65 3.2 The controller classes 68 3.3 Custom controller classes 75 3.4 Filters 79 3.5 Redirects 84 3.6 Exceptions 87 3.7 Rendering templates 89 3.8 run_later 97 3.9 Sending and streaming 97 3.10 Conclusion 99 Chapter 4: Views 101 4.1 ERB 101 4.2 Haml 105 4.3 Merb view templates 109 4.4 Partials 111 4.5 Conclusion 112 Chapter 5: Models 113 5.1 Configuration 113 5.2 Model classes 115 5.3 Properties 118 5.4 Associations 132 5.5 CRUD basics 140 5.6 Hooks 154 5.7 Plugins 155 5.8 Conclusion 165 Chapter 6: Helpers 167 6.1 Truncate helper 167 6.2 Numeric helpers 168 6.3 Date and time helpers 171 6.4 Cycle helper 176 6.5 Tag helpers 177 6.6 Form helpers 179 6.7 Conclusion 192 Chapter 7: Slices 193 7.1 Slice development 193 7.2 Slice usage 201 7.3 Conclusion 203 Chapter 8: Sessions 205 8.1 How sessions work 205 8.2 Configuration 206 8.3 Storing sessions 207 8.4 Request access 219 8.5 Controller access 220 8.6 Conclusion 220 Chapter 9: Authentication 221 9.1 Auth core 221 9.2 Auth more 237 9.3 Auth password slices 245 9.4 Conclusion 251 Chapter 10: Mailers 253 10.1 Configuration 253 10.2 Using mailers directly 255 10.3 Mail controllers 257 10.4 Testing 261 10.5 Generation 261 10.6 Conclusion 262 Chapter 11: Parts 263 11.1 Parts controllers 263 11.2 Invoking actions 266 11.3 Generation 267 11.4 Conclusion 267 Chapter 12: Caching 269 12.1 Configuration 269 12.2 Caching basics 271 12.3

Foy Savas is both a contributor to the Merb project and one of Merb's earliest adopters. He has applied the Merb framework in both large and small production applications. Foy is director at Assembly (http://assemb.ly), a Boston-based consulting firm focused on connecting brilliant people with innovative ideas. In the past he has served as CTO for a large health and fitness site and as a lead consultant for several white-labeled Web applications.