CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-rails-3coding-stylestandards
Deleteman
Deleteman

Reputation: 8690

Rails: Best practice for handling development data

I have the following scenario:

I'm starting development of a long project (around 6 months) and I need to have some information on the database in order to test my features. The problem is that right now, I don't have the forms to insert this information (I will in the future) but I need the information loaded on the DB, what's the best way to handle this? Specially considering that once the app is complete, I won't need this process anymore.

As an example, lets say I have tasks that need to be categorized. I've begun working on the tasks, but I need to have some categories loaded on my db already.

I'm working with Rails 3.1 btw.

Thanks in advance!

Edit

About seeds:I've been told that seeds are not the way to go if your data may vary a bit, since you'd have to delete all information and reinsert it again. Say.. I want to change or add categories, then I'd have to edit the seeds.rb file, do my modifications and then delete and reload all data...., is there another way? Or are seeds the defenitely best way to solve this problem?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 611

Answers (3)

Lester Peabody
Lester Peabody

Reputation: 1888

So it sounds like you'll possibly be adding, changing, or deleting data along the way that will be intermingled amongst other data. So seeds.rb is out. What you need to use are migrations. That way you can search for and identify the data you want to change through a sequential process, which migrations are exactly designed for. Otherwise I think your best bet is to change the data manually through the rails console.

EDIT: A good example would be as follows.

You're using Capistrano to handle your deployment. You want to add a new Category, Toys, to your system. In a migration file then you would add Category.create(:name => "Toys") or something similar in your migration function (I forget what they call it now in Rails 3.1, I know there's only a single method though), run rake db:migrate locally, test your changes, commit them, then if it's acceptable deploy it using cap:deploy and that will run the new migration against your production database, insert the new category, and make it available for use in the deployed application.

That example aside, it really depends on your workflow. If you think that adding new data via migrations won't hose your application, then go for it. I will say that DHH (David Heinemeier Hansson) is not a fan of it, as he uses it strictly for changing the structure of the database over time. If you didn't know DHH is the creator of Rails.

EDIT 2: A thought I just had, which would let you skip the notion of using migrations if you weren't comfortable with it. You could 100% rely on your db/seeds.rb file. When you think of "seeds.rb" you think of creating information, but this doesn't necessarily have to be the case. Rather than just blindly creating data, you can check to see if the pertinent data already exists, and if it does then modify and save it, but if it doesn't exist then just create a new record plain and simple.

db/seeds.rb

toys = Category.find_by_name("Toys")
if toys then
  toys.name = "More Toys"
  toys.save
else
  Category.create(:name => "More Toys")
end

Run rake db:seeds and that code will run. You just need to consistently update the seeds.rb file every time you change your data, so that 1) it's searching for the right data value and 2) it's updating the correct attributes.

In the end there's no right or wrong way to do this, it's just whatever works for you and your workflow.

Upvotes: 2

stephenmurdoch
stephenmurdoch

Reputation: 34603

there is a file called db/seeds.rb

you can instantiate records using it

user1=User.create(:email=>"[email protected]", 
  :first_name=>"user", 
  :last_name=>"name", 
  :bio=>"User bio...", 
  :website=>"http://www.website.com", 
  :occupation=>"WebDeveloper",
  :password=>"changeme", 
  :password_confirmation=>"changeme", 
  :avatar => File.open(File.join(Rails.root, '/app/assets/images/profiles/image.png'))
  )
user2=User.create(:email=>"[email protected]", 
  :first_name=>"user2", 
  :last_name=>"name2", 
  :bio=>"User2 bio...", 
  :website=>"http://www.website.com", 
  :occupation=>"WebDeveloper",
  :password=>"changeme", 
  :password_confirmation=>"changeme", 
  :avatar => File.open(File.join(Rails.root, '/app/assets/images/profiles/image.png'))
  )

Just run rake db:seed from command line to get it into the db

Upvotes: 0

mpartel
mpartel

Reputation: 4492

The place to load development data is db/seeds.rb. Since you can write arbitrary Ruby code there, you can even load your dev data from external files, for instance.

Upvotes: 0

Related Questions