Rails Cookbook

Controller
Introduction
Accessing Form Data from a Controller
Changing an Application's Default Page
Clarifying Your Code with Named Routes
Configuring Customized Routing Behavior
Displaying Alert Messages with Flash
Extending the Life of a Flash Message
Following Actions with Redirects
Generating URLs Dynamically
Inspecting Requests with Filters
Logging with Filters
Rendering Actions
Restricting Access to Controller Methods
Sending Files or Data Streams to the Browser
Storing Session Information in a Database
Tracking Information with Sessions
Using Filters for Authentication

5. Action View
Introduction
Simplifying Templates with View Helpers
Displaying Large Datasets with Pagination
Creating a Sticky Select List
Editing Many-to-Many Relationships with Multiselect Lists
Factoring Out Common Display Code with Layouts
Defining a Default Application Layout
Generating XML with Builder Templates
Generating RSS Feeds from Active Record Data
Reusing Page Elements with Partials
Processing Dynamically Created Input Fields
Customizing the Behavior of Standard Helpers
Creating a Web Form with Form Helpers
Formatting Dates, Times, and Currencies
Personalizing User Profiles with Gravatars
Avoiding Harmful Code in Views with Liquid Templates
Globalizing Your Rails Application

6. RESTful Development
Introduction
Creating Nested Resources
Supporting Alternative Data Formats by MIME Type
Modeling Relationships RESTfully with Join Models
Moving Beyond Simple CRUD with RESTful Resources
Consuming Complex Nested REST Resources
Developing Your Rails Applications RESTfully

7. Rails Application Testing
Introduction
Centralizing the Creation of Objects Common to Test Cases
Creating Fixtures for Many-to-Many Associations
Importing Test Data with CSV Fixtures
Including Dynamic Data in Fixtures with ERb
Initializing a Test Database
Interactively Testing Controllers from the Rails Console
Interpreting the Output of Test::Unit
Loading Test Data with YAML Fixtures
Monitoring Test Coverage with rake stats
Running Tests with Rake
Speeding Up Tests with Transactional Fixtures
Testing Across Controllers with Integration Tests
Testing Controllers with Functional Tests
Examining the Contents of Cookie
Testing Custom and Named Routes
Testing HTTP Requests with Response-Related Assertions
Testing a Model with Unit Tests
Unit Testing Model Validations
Verifying DOM Structure with Tag-Related Assertions
Writing Custom Assertions
Testing File Upload
Modifying the Default Behavior of a Class for Testing by Using Mocks
Improving Feedback by Running Tests Continuously
Analyzing Code Coverage with Rcov

8. JavaScript and Ajax
Introduction
Adding DOM Elements to a Page
Creating a Custom Report with Drag and Drop
Dynamically Adding Items to a Select List
Monitoring the Content Length of a Textarea
Updating Page Elements with RJS Templates
Inserting JavaScript into Templates
Letting a User Reorder a List
Autocompleting a Text Field
Searching for and Highlighting Text Dynamically
Enhancing the User Interface with Visual Effects
Implementing a Live Search
Editing Fields in Place
Creating an Ajax Progress Indicator

9. Action Mailer
Introduction
Configuring Rails to Send Email
Creating a Custom Mailer Class with the Mailer Generator
Formatting Email Messages Using Templates
Attaching Files to Email Messages
Sending Email from a Rails Application
Receiving Email with Action Mailer

10. Debugging Rails Applications
Introduction
Exploring Rails from the Console
Fixing Bugs at the Source with Ruby -cw
Debugging Your Application in Real Time with the breakpointer
Logging with the Built-in Rails Logger Class
Writing Debugging Information to a File
Emailing Application Exceptions
Outputting Environment Information in Views
Displaying Object Contents with Exceptions
Filtering Development Logs in Real Time
Debugging HTTP Communication with Firefox Extensions
Debugging Your JavaScript in Real Time with the JavaScript Shell
Debugging Your Code Interactively with ruby-debug

11. Security
Introduction
Hardening Your Systems with Strong Passwords
Protecting Queries from SQL Injection
Guarding Against Cross-Site Scripting Attacks
Restricting Access to Public Methods or Actions
Securing Your Server by Closing Unnecessary Ports

12. Performance
Introduction
Measuring Web Server Performance with Httperf
Benchmarking Portions of Your Application Code
Improving Performance by Caching Static Pages
Expiring Cached Pages
Mixing Static and Dynamic Content with Fragment Caching
Filtering Cached Pages with Action Caching
Speeding Up Data Access Times with memcached
Increasing Performance by Caching Post-Processed Content

13. Hosting and Deployment
Introduction
Hosting Rails Using Apache 1.3 and mod_fastcgi
Managing Multiple Mongrel Processes with mongrel_cluster
Hosting Rails with Apache 2.2, mod_proxy_balancer, and Mongrel
Deploying Rails with Pound in Front of Mongrel, Lighttpd, and Apache
Customizing Pound's Logging with cronolog
Configuring Pound with SSL Support
Simple Load Balancing with Pen
Deploying Your Rails Project with Capistrano
Deploying Your Application to Multiple Environments with Capistrano
Deploying with Capistrano When You Can't Access Subversion
Deploying with Capistrano and mongrel_cluster
Disabling Your Web Site During Maintenance
Writing Custom Capistrano Tasks
Cleaning Up Residual Session Records

14. Extending Rails with Plug-ins
Introduction
Finding Third-Party Plug-ins
Installing Plug-ins
Manipulating Record Versions with acts_as_versioned
Building Authentication with acts_as_authenticated
Simplifying Folksonomy with the acts_as_taggable
Extending Active Record with acts_as
Adding View Helpers to Rails as Plug-ins
Uploading Files with file_column
Uploading Files with acts_as_attachment
Disabling Records Instead of Deleting Them with acts_as_paranoid
Adding More Elaborate Authentication Using the Login Engine

15. Graphics
Introduction
Installing RMagick for Image Processing
Uploading Images to a Database
Serving Images Directly from a Database
Creating Resized Thumbnails with RMagick
Generating PDF Documents
Visually Displaying Data with Gruff
Creating Small, Informative Graphs with Sparklines
A. Migrating to Rails 1.2
Action Controller
Active Record
Action View

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