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Rails Routes and Resources

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Creating a Model

3:32 with Jay McGavren

We want our /pages path to show a list of blog pages. But right now, our view template is just showing a static header. So let's set our controller up to load some Page data so that we can include it in our template.

To run the model generator from your terminal:

bin/rails generate model ModelName attr1:type attr2:type

...Where ModelName is the name of the model class to create (like Post), attr1, attr2, etc. are the names of attributes (like title or body), and each type entry is the type of the attribute (like string or integer).

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    We want our slash pages path to show a list of blog pages but 0:00
    right now our view template is just showing a static header. 0:04
    So let's set our controller up to load some page data so 0:07
    that we can include it in our template. 0:10
    In our pages controller, we will limit the index method to load a list of all pages 0:13
    and store it in an instance variable. 0:17
    So assign to an instance variable @pages. 0:21
    Notice that I named the instance variable pages plural and 0:24
    not page singular since it's going to hold a collection of multiple pages 0:27
    then we'll call the Page.all 0:32
    class method to load all page records from the database. 0:33
    Let's save this and refresh our browser. 0:37
    We get an error uninitialized constant page. 0:41
    Our controller is receiving the user's request and 0:46
    attempting to load data from the model. 0:48
    But we haven't created our page model class yet. 0:50
    It doesn't exist. 0:53
    So we get an error when we attempt to reference it. 0:55
    So let's create a model class now using Rails generator. 0:57
    Just as with scaffolds and controllers rails has a generator for models. 1:01
    The model generator will create a source file with the model class for us. 1:05
    At the same time it will create a migration file that will set up 1:10
    a database table to hold records for that model. 1:13
    Stop the server if it's running and run the command bin/rails generate model, 1:16
    because we're generating a model class and then the name of the model class page. 1:23
    Then just as with scaffolds we can specify a series of attributes we want page 1:31
    objects to have along with the types of database columns that should be created to 1:35
    hold that data we want pages to have title and body attributes just like with posts. 1:39
    And then also a slug attribute that we can use to make human readable URLs. 1:44
    So we'll add a title attribute and give it a type of string with a title:string. 1:49
    Then we'll hit space and add a body attribute. 1:56
    Page bodies are of course much longer than titles so 1:59
    we'll give it a type of text instead of string. 2:02
    Last we'll add a slug attribute with a type of string again. 2:05
    Hit return to run the command and it will create files with a model and 2:10
    a migration for us. 2:14
    The model classes in app models page.rb. 2:15
    As with the post model, it's not much to look at because all its methods 2:19
    are inherited from ApplicationRecord. 2:23
    The migration is in a file within the db migrate directory. 2:26
    It has commands to create a Pages table 2:32
    with all of the fields we specified on the command line by default it also has 2:35
    a call to the timestamps method which will set up created_at and 2:39
    updated_at columns that track when a record was created or modified. 2:43
    It's not mentioned here but 2:48
    rails will automatically create the all important ID column. 2:49
    That's used for looking individual page records up later. 2:53
    We've created the migration, but the database isn't updated yet. 2:57
    Remember we got a pending migration error last time we created the migration without 3:01
    updating the database to avoid seeing that next time we launch the server. 3:05
    We need to run bin/rails db:migrate, 3:09
    which will run the migration and create the database table. 3:15
    Now let's run the server again with bin/rails s. 3:19
    And then reload our browser. 3:23
    It will load successfully this time but 3:26
    no pages will be displayed. We'll fix that next. 3:29

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