Can I put all my Ruby constants in environment.rb?

Rails
1

Hello, I got a lot of Ruby constants spread over a couple of models.
Is it possible to throw them all into environment.rb instead? I’d
really enjoy having things in one place. Thanks.

2

Save The Vinyls wrote:

Hello, I got a lot of Ruby constants spread over a couple of models.
Is it possible to throw them all into environment.rb instead? I’d
really enjoy having things in one place. Thanks.

I would guess you have more than constants “spread over a couple of
models”! If
your design is indeed not clear and DRY, you ought to work to put each
operation
into the model where it belongs.

The same with constants; each must have a model that needs it most. Put
it
inside that model, and access it with Model:: notation.

–
Phlip

3

Save The Vinyls wrote:

Hello, I got a lot of Ruby constants spread over a couple of models.
Is it possible to throw them all into environment.rb instead? I’d
really enjoy having things in one place. Thanks.

Think it depends on what those constants are…

if they are environment specific stuff like

SITE_LOCKOUT_TIME = 15.minutes

which you may want to change to 30.seconds in development,
then I’d probably put the default in environment.rb
and do a

SITE_LOCKOUT_TIME = 15.minutes unless defined?(SITE_LOCKOUT_TIME)

then, you can override it for the development environment in in
environments/development.rb

however,
if it’s something that isn’t global, and isnt environment specific,
then you should keep it in the relevant model.

eg.

class User
LOCKOUT_TIME = 15.minutes

def is_locked_out?
self.locked_at && self.locked_at > self.class::LOCKOUT_TIME.ago
end
end

4

say for people.rb:

MAX_EMAIL = MAX_PASSWORD = SMALL_STRING_LENGTH

MAX_NAME = SMALL_STRING_LENGTH

MAX_NICKNAME = 15

EMAIL_REGEX = /\A[A-Z0-9._%-]+@([A-Z0-9-]+.)+[A-Z]{2,4}\z/i

DESCRIPTION_LENGTH = 2000

TRASH_TIME_AGO = 1.month.ago

SEARCH_LIMIT = 20

SEARCH_PER_PAGE = 8

MESSAGES_PER_PAGE = 5

NUM_RECENT_MESSAGES = 4

NUM_WALL_COMMENTS = 10

NUM_RECENT = 8

FEED_SIZE = 10

TIME_AGO_FOR_MOSTLY_ACTIVE = 1.month.ago

On Jul 6, 11:20 pm, Matthew R. Jacobs <rails-mailing-l…@andreas-

5

say for people.rb:

MAX_EMAIL = MAX_PASSWORD = SMALL_STRING_LENGTH

MAX_NAME = SMALL_STRING_LENGTH

MAX_NICKNAME = 15

EMAIL_REGEX = /\A[A-Z0-9._%-]+@([A-Z0-9-]+.)+[A-Z]{2,4}\z/i

DESCRIPTION_LENGTH = 2000

TRASH_TIME_AGO = 1.month.ago

SEARCH_LIMIT = 20

SEARCH_PER_PAGE = 8

MESSAGES_PER_PAGE = 5

NUM_RECENT_MESSAGES = 4

NUM_WALL_COMMENTS = 10

NUM_RECENT = 8

FEED_SIZE = 10

TIME_AGO_FOR_MOSTLY_ACTIVE = 1.month.ago

On Jul 6, 11:20 pm, Matthew R. Jacobs <rails-mailing-l…@andreas-

6

thanks a lot for the response guys. i no longer feel this is
necessary, i’ll keep the constants where they are.

On Jul 7, 1:23Â pm, Matthew R. Jacobs <rails-mailing-l…@andreas-

7

Save The Vinyls wrote:

say for people.rb:

MAX_EMAIL = MAX_PASSWORD = SMALL_STRING_LENGTH
EMAIL_REGEX = /\A[A-Z0-9._%-]+@([A-Z0-9-]+.)+[A-Z]{2,4}\z/i
DESCRIPTION_LENGTH = 2000
TRASH_TIME_AGO = 1.month.ago
SEARCH_LIMIT = 20
SEARCH_PER_PAGE = 8
MESSAGES_PER_PAGE = 5
NUM_RECENT_MESSAGES = 4
NUM_WALL_COMMENTS = 10
NUM_RECENT = 8
FEED_SIZE = 10
TIME_AGO_FOR_MOSTLY_ACTIVE = 1.month.ago

On Jul 6, 11:20�pm, Matthew R. Jacobs <rails-mailing-l…@andreas-

depends if you need to reuse this stuff or not.
think it’s probably unecessary to freeze some of these as constants.

would probably rewrite it

class People
validates_length_of :email, :password, :name, :maximum =>
SMALL_STRING_LENGTH
validates_length_of :nickname, :maximum => 15
validates_format_of :email,
/\A[A-Z0-9._%-]+@([A-Z0-9-]+.)+[A-Z]{2,4}\z/i
validates_length_of :description, :maximum => 2000

note: TRASH_TIME_AGO = 1.month.ago will break

as the constant is set at class load time

def self.to_trash(time=1.month)
self.find(:all, [“created_at < ?”, time.ago])
end

named_scope :mostly_active, lambda{:conditions => [“updated_at > ?”,
1.month.ago]}
end

the stuff about number of messages to display and such
are probably view variables,
and you may want override with params…

hope that helps.

http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/12394-matthew-rudy-jacobs