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Ruby On Rails Tutorial: Essential Quick Guide For Beginners
Disclosure: We’re reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. For more information, see our Disclosure page. Thanks.
If you’re a beginner looking to learn Ruby on Rails (RoR), here’s a quick guide to get you started with the essentials. Ruby on Rails is a powerful web application framework written in Ruby that allows developers to create web apps quickly and efficiently.
Contents
- 1 1. Set Up Your Development Environment
- 2 2. Creating Your First Rails Application
- 3 3. Basic File Structure of a Rails App
- 4 4. Running the Rails Server
- 5 5. Understanding MVC (Model-View-Controller)
- 6 6. Routing
- 7 7. Creating and Managing Data
- 8 8. Basic CRUD Operations
- 9 9. Testing Your App
- 10 10. Useful Gems and Tools
- 11 11. Deploying Your Application
- 12 Free Resources for Learning Rails
1. Set Up Your Development Environment
Before diving into Ruby on Rails, you’ll need to set up your development environment. Here’s how you can do it:
a) Install Ruby
- Install Ruby using RubyInstaller for Windows or by using a version manager like
rbenvorrvmon Mac or Linux.
b) Install Rails
After installing Ruby, you can install Rails using the following command:
bashCopy codegem install rails
c) Install a Database
Ruby on Rails uses databases to store data. The most common one is SQLite (default), but you can also use PostgreSQL or MySQL.
For SQLite, it is usually installed with Rails. However, for PostgreSQL or MySQL, you will need to install those databases separately.
2. Creating Your First Rails Application
Once your environment is ready, you can create your first Rails application with:
bashCopy coderails new myapp
This command generates a new Rails project called myapp. You can navigate to your app’s directory:
bashCopy codecd myapp
3. Basic File Structure of a Rails App
A new Rails project has a specific file structure. Some important files and directories are:
app/– Contains the main application code: controllers, models, views, and assets.config/– Contains configuration files for the app.db/– Database schema and migrations.public/– Static files like images and JavaScript.Gemfile– Lists the gems (libraries) used in your app.
4. Running the Rails Server
Once you’ve created your app, you can start the Rails server by running:
bashCopy coderails server
This will start the server locally at http://localhost:3000. You can open this URL in your browser to see your application running.
5. Understanding MVC (Model-View-Controller)
Rails is based on the MVC architecture, which is a way to separate an application into three main components:
a) Model
The Model is the Ruby class that represents the data and logic of the application. For example, in a blog app, you might have a Post model that represents blog posts.
To create a model, use the command:
bashCopy coderails generate model Post title:string body:text
This will generate a migration and a model file. After running the migration:
bashCopy coderails db:migrate
It will create the posts table in the database.
b) View
The View is the HTML template that the user sees. Views are typically written in ERB (Embedded Ruby), which is a Ruby-based templating engine. Views are stored in the app/views directory.
For example, to create a view for the Post model, you would have a file app/views/posts/index.html.erb.
c) Controller
The Controller handles the incoming requests and renders the appropriate view. You can generate a controller using:
bashCopy coderails generate controller Posts
This will create a posts_controller.rb file in app/controllers with some default actions.
Example:
rubyCopy codeclass PostsController < ApplicationController
def index
@posts = Post.all
end
end
6. Routing
In Rails, you define routes in the config/routes.rb file. For example:
rubyCopy codeRails.application.routes.draw do
resources :posts
end
The above resources :posts line automatically generates routes for the standard CRUD actions (Create, Read, Update, Delete) for the posts resource.
7. Creating and Managing Data
You can interact with the database via the Rails console. To start the console:
bashCopy coderails console
You can then create and manage records. For example:
rubyCopy codePost.create(title: 'My First Post', body: 'This is my first post content.')
8. Basic CRUD Operations
Rails provides the default controller actions for the basic CRUD operations:
- Create:
newandcreateactions. - Read:
indexandshowactions. - Update:
editandupdateactions. - Delete:
destroyaction.
9. Testing Your App
Rails comes with built-in testing tools. You can write tests using RSpec or Rails’ default test framework, Minitest.
Example:
bashCopy coderails generate test_unit:model Post
This creates test files to test the functionality of your models.
10. Useful Gems and Tools
- Devise: Authentication gem to handle user logins.
- Pundit: For authorization (defining who can do what in your app).
- RSpec: A popular testing framework for Rails applications.
11. Deploying Your Application
Once you’re ready to go live, you can deploy your application to platforms like Heroku, Render, or DigitalOcean. Heroku provides a simple way to deploy a Rails application for free.
For Heroku:
bashCopy codeheroku create
git push heroku master
Free Resources for Learning Rails
- Rails Guides – The official Rails documentation is an excellent resource for beginners.
Rails Guides - Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl – A great free online book for Rails beginners.
Ruby on Rails Tutorial - Codecademy Rails Course – A beginner-friendly interactive course.
Codecademy Rails
By following this guide and using the resources above, you’ll quickly get up to speed with Ruby on Rails and start building your own web applications.
