It is fine to pull from github (less bugs, I hope)
$ git clone git://github.com/1602/express-on-railway.git
$ cd express-on-railway
$ npm install
$ cd -
$ rm -rf express-on-railway
Or install from npm registry:
$ npm install express-on-railway
This package depends on express, ejs and node-redis-mapper
$ mkdir blog && cd blog
$ express -t ejs && railway init
On initialization rails-like directories tree generated, like that:
.
|-- app
| |-- controllers
| | |-- admin
| | | |-- categories_controller.js
| | | |-- posts_controller.js
| | | `-- tags_controller.js
| | |-- comments_controller.js
| | `-- posts_controller.js
| |-- models
| | |-- category.js
| | |-- post.js
| | `-- tag.js
| |-- views
| | |-- admin
| | | `-- posts
| | | |-- edit.ejs
| | | |-- index.ejs
| | | |-- new.ejs
| | |-- admin_layout.ejs
| | |-- application_layout.ejs
| | `-- posts
| | |-- index.ejs
| | `-- show.ejs
| `-- helpers
| |-- admin
| | |-- posts_helper.js
| | `-- tags_helper.js
| `-- posts_helper.js
`-- config
`-- routes.js
Now we do not have to tediously describe REST rotes for each resource, enough to write in config / routes.js code like this:
exports.routes = function (map) {
map.resources('posts', function (post) {
post.resources('comments');
});
};
instead of:
var ctl = require('./lib/posts_controller.js');
app.get('/posts/new.:format?', ctl.new);
app.get('/posts.:format?', ctl.index);
app.post('/posts.:format?', ctl.create);
app.get('/posts/:id.:format?', ctl.show);
app.put('/posts/:id.:format?', ctl.update);
app.delete('/posts/:id.:format?', ctl.destroy);
app.get('/posts/:id/edit.:format?', ctl.edit);
var com_ctl = require('./lib/comments_controller.js');
app.get('/posts/:post_id/comments/new.:format?', com_ctl.new);
app.get('/posts/:post_id/comments.:format?', com_ctl.index);
app.post('/posts/:post_id/comments.:format?', com_ctl.create);
app.get('/posts/:post_id/comments/:id.:format?', com_ctl.show);
app.put('/posts/:post_id/comments/:id.:format?', com_ctl.update);
app.delete('/posts/:post_id/comments/:id.:format?', com_ctl.destroy);
app.get('/posts/:post_id/comments/:id/edit.:format?', com_ctl.edit);
and you can more finely tune the resources to specify certain actions, middleware, and other. Here example routes of my blog:
exports.routes = function (map) {
map.get('/', 'posts#index');
map.get(':id', 'posts#show');
map.get('sitemap.txt', 'posts#map');
map.namespace('admin', function (admin) {
admin.resources('posts', {middleware: basic_auth, except: ['show']}, function (post) {
post.resources('comments');
post.get('likes', 'posts#likes')
});
});
};
for debugging routes described in config/routes.js I have written jake-task that generates the following output:
$ jake routes
GET / posts#index
GET /:id posts#show
sitemap.txt GET /sitemap.txt posts#map
admin_posts GET /admin/posts.:format? admin/posts#index
admin_posts POST /admin/posts.:format? admin/posts#create
new_admin_post GET /admin/posts/new.:format? admin/posts#new
edit_admin_post GET /admin/posts/:id/edit.:format? admin/posts#edit
admin_post DELETE /admin/posts/:id.:format? admin/posts#destroy
admin_post PUT /admin/posts/:id.:format? admin/posts#update
likes_admin_post PUT /admin/posts/:id/likes.:format? admin/posts#likes
In addition to regular rails helpers link_to, form_for, javascript_include_tag, form_for, etc. there are also helpers for routing: each route generates a helper method that can be invoked in a view:
<%- link_to("New post", new_admin_post) %>
<%- link_to("New post", edit_admin_post(post)) %>
generates output:
<a href="/admin/posts/new">New post</a>
<a href="/admin/posts/10/edit">New post</a>
The controller is a module containing the declaration of actions such as this:
beforeFilter(loadPost, {only: ['edit', 'update', 'destroy']});
action('index', function () {
Post.allInstances({order: 'created_at'}, function (collection) {
render({ posts: collection });
});
});
action('create', function () {
Post.create(req.body, function () {
redirect(path_to.admin_posts);
});
});
action('new', function () {
render({ post: new Post });
});
action('edit', function () {
render({ post: request.post });
});
action('update', function () {
request.post.save(req.locale, req.body, function () {
redirect(path_to.admin_posts);
});
});
function loadPost () {
Post.find(req.params.id, function () {
request.post = this;
next();
});
}
Railway offers several built-in generators: for a model, controller and for initialization. Can be invoked as follows:
railway generate [what] [params]
what can be model, controller or scaffold. Example of controller generation:
$ railway generate controller admin/posts index new edit update
exists app/
exists app/controllers/
create app/controllers/admin/
create app/controllers/admin/posts_controller.js
create app/helpers/
create app/helpers/admin/
create app/helpers/admin/posts_helper.js
exists app/views/
create app/views/admin/
create app/views/admin/posts/
create app/views/admin/posts/index.ejs
create app/views/admin/posts/new.ejs
create app/views/admin/posts/edit.ejs
create app/views/admin/posts/update.ejs
Currently it generates only *.ejs views
At the moment I store objects in redis data store. For that purpose I have written simple driver, that adds persistence-related methods to models described in app/models/*.js. I can work with models the following way:
File app/models/post.js:
function Post () {};
Post.attributes = {
title: 'string',
preview: 'string',
content: 'string',
tags: 'json'
};
In controller:
// create new object
Post.create(params, function () {
console.log(post.id);
console.log(post.created_at);
});
// find by primary key
Post.find(params.id, function (err) {
if (!err) {
this.update_attributes({
title: 'Hello world',
preview: 'asda',
tags: 'world,hello,example,redis-mapper,find'.split(',')
});
}
});
// collection
Post.all_instances(function (posts) {
posts.forEach(function (post) {
console.log(post.title);
});
});
To run REPL console use command
railway console
or it's shortcut
railway c
It just simple node-js console with some Railway bingings, e.g. models. Just one note
about working with console. Node.js is asunchronous by his nature, and it's great
but it made console debugging much more complicated, because you should use callback
to fetch result from database, for example. I have added one useful method to
simplify async debugging using railway console. It's name c, you can pass it
as parameter to any function requires callback, and it will store parameters passed
to callback to variables _0, _1, ..., _N where N is index in arguments.
Example:
railway c
railway> User.find(53, c)
Callback called with 2 arguments:
_0 = null
_1 = [object Object]
railway> _1
{ email: [Getter/Setter],
password: [Getter/Setter],
activationCode: [Getter/Setter],
activated: [Getter/Setter],
forcePassChange: [Getter/Setter],
routesCount: [Getter/Setter],
isAdmin: [Getter/Setter],
id: [Getter/Setter] }
Copyright (C) 2011 by Anatoliy Chakkaev
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
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THE SOFTWARE.