Tutorial for writing generators?

Rails
1

Hi, I just completed the first version of an application. I now find
that subsequent version require me to do pretty much the same thing all
over again but for different types of things.

For example, I need to:

  1. Create a new model (say foo) and a set of related migrations
  2. Add a bunch of ‘belongs_to’ statements to the new model
  3. Add ‘has_many foo’ to a couple of other models
  4. Create a controller and a set of views for displaying the data in foo
    (like scaffold)
  5. Add a before_filter to this controller
  6. Create a link to the index page of this controller in my main layout
  7. Modify the create method in this controller to create the links
    between the foreign keys
  8. Create a POST string to pass data to this controller (to be used by
    another program)
  9. …and so on.

Normally, I would write that list up and go about doing it a step at a
time. However, when it comes to Rails, I feel lazy :-S
It seems that the DRY way is to use a generator. Is there a good
tutorial that I could follow?

Thanks,
Mohit.

2

Hi Mohit,

These were useful for me:

http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/UnderstandingGenerators
http://www.aidanf.net/rails/creating-your-own-generators-in-rails

Also you might find it useful to look up Rails::Generator and its
related classes at:

http://railsmanual.com/list/classes

– Urbanus
http://goldberg.240gl.org

3

urbanus wrote:

http://railsmanual.com/list/classes

– Urbanus
http://goldberg.240gl.org

Thanks Urbanus! I shall take a look at these resources :slight_smile:
Cheers
Mohit.