Luca Guidi

Ruby's Time has a bug: when try to serialize an timezoned time, then unserialize it back, the result will use the server local time, instead of use the original time zone.

>> utc = Time.now.utc
=> Fri Aug 29 09:07:37 UTC 2008
>> marshaled = Marshal.dump utc
=> "\004\bu:\tTime\r\251\037\e\200\344\254T\036"
>> Marshal.load marshaled
=> Fri Aug 29 11:07:37 +0200 2008


This bug doesn't affects Ruby 1.9, but we still don't use that version for production purpose. If you use 1.8.x with Rails 2.1.0, your cached timestamps (including ActiveRecord objects), are probably wrong.

>> comment = Comment.first
=> #<Comment id: 865423346, post_id: 1, text: "Nice post.", created_at: "2008-08-29 09:27:48", updated_at: "2008-08-29 09:27:48">
>> Rails.cache.write('comment', comment)
=> true
>> Rails.cache.read('comment')

=> #<Comment id: 865423346, post_id: 1, text: "Nice post.", created_at: "2008-08-29 09:27:48", updated_at: "2008-08-29 09:27:48">
>> comment.update_attributes :text => "Nice post!"
=> true
>> Rails.cache.write('comment', comment)
=> true
>> Rails.cache.read('comment')
=> #<Comment id: 865423346, post_id: 1, text: "Nice post!", created_at: "2008-08-29 09:27:48", updated_at: "2008-08-29 11:28:42">


Look at the last updated_at attribute, it uses local time instead of UTC time zone.
The first time everything goes right, because #updated_at wasn't invoked and casted to a Time instance. It's a string, and the marshaling is ok.
But, when I update the object, ActiveRecord changes the value of that timestamp, but before, it cast it to a Time, and everything goes wrong.

I submitted a patch for this bug, it was committed, and will be available in the upcoming Rails 2.2. You are strongly encouraged to update your Rails version.

Click to Globalize is ready for Rails 2.1!

I spent a lot of time to make this release the best of ever! I know that a lot of time has passed since the latest Rails major release, and I apologize for this.
The official Globalize it seems dead, but the great work of Nate Clark (aka heythisisnate) has made it compatible with Rails 2.1. Thanks Nate!
The Rails Edge now includes a basic support for i18n!

What's Changed?

The first big change is about the configuration, past versions has cluttered a bit your ApplicationController, I know, but now Click uses a YAML file configuration file for locales.

As you can see, it's more readable than put an Hash inside your main controller, and it also take the advantage to separate configuration from logic.

The second change regards the default language, you can use the above file to declare it, or use the Globalize syntax (Globalize::Locale.set_base_language('en-US')), but you have to choose a locale before the app starts.
This because Click needs a secure fallback mechanism, if no active Locale was set, it's always guarantees your application to work.

The third feature is about formatting: you can always choose between textile and markdown without editing ApplicationController, but using the same configuration file.

I removed the deprecated class method ApplicationController#globalize? in favor of the instance one. This means you can use it to turn on/off Click to Globalize, just returning a boolean value:

This version also includes tiny fixes, refactoring and cleanup.

You may wish to learn a bit about Click to Globalize, so I encourage you to visit the official page.
I hope you enjoy your i18n on Rails!

Ruby on Rails has just integrated a basic support for i18n.

ActiveSupport

ActiveSupport now includes the i18n gem which provides the API and the settings for the default locale: en-US.
The gem abstracts the repository where the translations are stored, so all the plugin authors could write their own mechanism. The bundled repository is called Simple and stores all the settings in memory.

Declaring a locale is quite easy:

I18n.backend.store_translations :'it-IT', {
  :support => {
    :array => {
      :sentence_connector => 'e'
    }
  },
  :date => {
    :formats => {
      :default => "%d/%m/%Y",
      :short => "%d %b",
      :long => "%d %B %Y",
    },
    :day_names => %w(Lunedì Martedì Mercoledì Giovedì Venerdì Sabato Domenica),
    :abbr_day_names => %w(Lun Mar Mer Gio Ven Sab Dom),
    :month_names => %w(Gennaio Febbraio Marzo Aprile Maggio Giugno Luglio Agosto Settembre Ottobre Novembre Dicembre).unshift(nil),
    :abbr_month_names => %w(Gen Feb Mar Apr Mag Giu Lug Ago Set Ott Nov Dic).unshift(nil),
    :order => [:day, :month, :year]
  },
  :time => {
    :formats => {
      :default => "%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z",
      :short => "%d %b %H:%M",
      :long => "%B %d, %Y %H:%M",
    },
    :am => 'am',
    :pm => 'pm'
  }
}

How can I translate or localize?

I18n.locale = 'it-IT'
I18n.t :hello   # => Ciao
I18n.l Time.now # => "Ven, 18 Lug 2008 10:58:14 +0200"

I18n#t is also useful to fetch locale defaults:

I18n.t :'time.formats.short' # => %d %b %H:%M

ActiveRecord

ActiveRecord now returns localized error messages for validations.

You may wish to declare your messages:

I18n.backend.store_translations :'it-IT', {
  :active_record => {
    :error_messages => {
      :inclusion => "non è incluso nella lista"
      # ...
    }
  }
}

ActionPack

ActionView now supports translations and localization for time and currency helpers (i.e. distance_of_time_in_words, number_to_currency).

UPDATE 2008-07-19: Sven Fuchs wrote a i18n Rails manifesto and a technical post about the i18n API.

I'm proud to announce my presence as speaker at the RailsConf Europe 2008 with a speech on Click to Globalize.

I took inspiration from the Pratik Naik post, and realized a more simplistic version of its Rails single file app. My implementation has only Rails as unique dependency.

require 'rubygems'
require 'action_controller'
require 'webrick'
require 'webrick_server'

class HelloWorldController < ActionController::Base
  session :off
  def index; render :text => 'Hello World!' end
end

ActionController::Routing::Routes.draw do |map|
  map.root :controller => "hello_world"
end

DispatchServlet.dispatch :port => 3000,
    :server_root  => File.dirname(__FILE__)

Update 2008-06-04: I just wrote another version which also uses ActiveRecord and a template.

require 'rubygems'
require 'activerecord'
require 'action_controller'
require 'webrick'
require 'webrick_server'

ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(
  :adapter  => 'sqlite3',
  :database => 'tiny_rails.sqlite3',
  :timeout  => 5000)

ActiveRecord::Schema.define do
  create_table :people, :force => true do |t|
    t.string :first_name
  end
end
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base; end
Person.create :first_name => 'Luca'

File.open('index.html.erb', 'w') do |f|
  f << "Hello, my name is <%=h @person.first_name %>!\n"
end

class HelloWorldController < ActionController::Base
  session :off
  def index
    @person = Person.find :first
    render :file => 'index.html.erb'
  end
end

ActionController::Routing::Routes.draw do |map|
  map.root :controller => "hello_world"
end

DispatchServlet.dispatch :port => 3000,
    :server_root  => File.dirname(__FILE__)

Just start the script and point your browser at http://localhost:3000!

Acts As Resource is ready for the imminent Rails 2.1!

I also moved it to GitHub, the new repo is http://github.com/jodosha/acts-as-resource/tree/master, the SVN one is deprecated.

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to recommend me on Working With Rails.

Click to Globalize has been rewritten, in order to use all instance methods of the JavaScript class, instead of class methods.

I also fixed some tiny issues:

• The form_authentication_token method is called only if the application is protected against the CSRF attacks (protect_against_forgery? returns true)
• It uses as parameter key what request_forgery_protection_token returns, instead of the hard-coded authenticity_token
• The JavaScript class uses Prototype's dom:loaded custom event.

I also migrated the plugin GitHub. The new repo is http://github.com/jodosha/click-to-globalize/tree/master, so the oldest one is deprecated.
Have a nice globalization!

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to recommend me on Working With Rails.

You know how tests are fundamental for a well-developed project, for this reason we should create step-by-step a net of test cases. Of course we also should be able to change rapidly our tests as the same we do with our code. Ruby on Rails is a great framework, because its shortcuts, the wide usage of DSL etc.. All this stuff can save a lot of time, but what about tests? Are we really able to follow our code?

Create and Destroy

ActiveSupport provides few useful tools to improve our test, I really appreciate assert_difference and assert_no_difference. Basically, this two methods accepts as arguments a code chunk (as string) and a block. When the test run, it binds the block first, then it assert if the changements caused by the block call are the same expected by first argument.

def test_should_be_created
  assert_difference 'Person.count' do
    create_person
  end
end

We are testing a Person creation, we pass as first argument 'Person.count', and the code that should correctly save the person. If the model will be saved, a new record should exists into the database table. At this moment assert_difference evaluates the first argument, and assert if there are differences in the Person count.

def test_should_be_destroyed
  assert_difference 'Person.count', -1 do
    destroy_person
  end
end

This example is just a bit different, we are also passing a Fixnum as argument. This because we want assert another difference from the default one, which is +1. So, if the model will be correctly saved, we will have a negative difference, of one, into the Person count.

def test_should_require_first_name_on_create
  assert_no_difference 'Person.count' do
    create_person
    assert person.errors.on(:first_name)
  end
end

The third example uses assert_no_difference, to test aganist model validations. ActiveRecord, by default, prevents the creation of a model if a validation doesn't pass. In this case our model requires first_name as mandatory attribute, but unfortunately it's nil, so the creation fails and the brand new record will be not created.

Update

As you can see, those two methods are very useful for test creation and destruction of models, but totally missing the goal of the update. In fact, the update process of a record, doesn't produces numerical differences. I created two methods to supply this lack.

def assert_updated(model, message = nil, &block) 
  yield
  assert_not_equal model.attributes, model.reload.attributes, message
end

def assert_not_updated(model, message = nil, &block)
  yield
  assert_equal model.attributes, model.reload.attributes, message
end

Just add them to your test/test_helper.rb, and they will be available in all your test cases.

def test_should_update
  assert_updated person do
    update_person
  end
end

First, you should notice that the first argument it isn't a string but an ActiveRecord. The behaviour of this method is similar to the previous I illustrated, it first bind the block, then assert if the attributes of the model are different. It internally uses ActiveRecord::Base#attributes which returns an hash of model attributes, then assert the differences with Ruby's assert_not_equal.

def test_should_require_first_name_on_update
  assert_not_updated person do
    update_person
    assert person.errors.on(:first_name)
  end
end

Similarly to all other examples, it first performs the block, call then assert there are no changes in the model attributes.

Conclusion

Those methods should provide a rapid way to write and mantain your test cases. If you enjoyed this post, feel free to recommend me on Working With Rails.

Click to Globalize

Click to Globalize is an extension for Globalize plugin, it allows to edit in place globalized labels. With this plugin you don't have to create a globalization back-end, but just edit your interface in place!!

If you have a previous globalization experience, you probably noticed that the main problem of dedicated back-ends is the lack of the context where the string will be placed in. It isn't a trivial issue: you'll never know if the meaning of your string is harmonious with other labels and how your string will be rendered, until the page load.

Now you can forget this issues, you can directly globalize in place!!

Getting Started

1. Install Globalize 1, if you don't already done.
2. Install Click to Globalize:
   

   $ ./scripts/plugin install git://github.com/jodosha/click-to-globalize.git

3. Run the setup task:
   

   $ rake click:setup

4. Edit config/click.yml
5. Add at the end of your layout the following code:
   

   <%= click_to_globalize -%>

6. Put in your view:
   

   <%= 'hello_world'.t %>

7. Start the server and click to globalize.

Prerequisites

• Globalize 1 plugin: www.globalize-rails.org.
• Prototype >= 1.5.1.1, this version was bundled in the outdated versions.
• RedCloth gem (optional) for textile formatting.
• BlueCloth gem (optional) for markdown formatting.

Install

NOTE the following instructions are for Click to Globalize v0.4.0 (Rails 2.1.x), for older version, please check your README.

1. Install Globalize 1, if you don't already done.
2. Install Click to Globalize:
   Rails 2.1.x

   $ ./script/plugin install git://github.com/jodosha/click-to-globalize.git

   Rails 2.0.x

   $ ./script/plugin install http://dev.23labs.net/svn/rails/plugins/click_to_globalize/trunk

   Rails 1.2.x

   $ ./script/plugin install http://dev.23labs.net/svn/rails/plugins/click_to_globalize/branches/for-1.2.x

3. Run the setup task:
   

   $ rake click:setup

4. Run the tests (optional):
   

   $ rake click:test

5. Edit config/click.yml, adding your locales (including the default one), and, optionally, the formatting style:

locales:
  english: en-US
  italian: it-IT

#optional
default: :english

# optional
formatting: textile


NOTE: Make sure to choose a default locale before the app starts.
6. Personalize the access to the globalization features, overriding #globalize:
   

   class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
     def self.globalize?
       current_user.admin?
     end
   end

   
   NOTE: #globalize? is method to turn on/off all the Click to Globalize features.
7. Add at the end of your layout the following code:
   

   <%= click_to_globalize -%>

Uninstall

$ ./script/plugin remove click_to_globalize

Features

• In-place editing for each globalized string.
• Easy and painless plug-in/plug-out process.
• Unobtrusive Javascript.
• Auto transformation from input text to textarea for long strings.

Common Issues

• The install process (for Rails 1.2.x) upgrades your Prototype version to 1.5.1.1 only if needed, but it's advisable to backup your scripts.
• Due to unobtrusive nature of the plugin, each page is parsed by javascript to find the right element and bind to it an Ajax.InPlaceEditor.
  Be sure your (X)HTML is wellformed.
  NOTICE: If you use the Rails 1.2.x scaffold system, Click to Globalize doesn't works. Cleanup the code before to use.
• If you use a wiki-formatting style it could be advisable to use #h to avoid security problems (i.e. XSS).
  

  <%= textilize(h('some_text'.t)) %>

• The official Globalize repository is still not compatible with Rails 2.1, use the heythisisnate's fork instead.

Contribute

• Check out the code and test it:
  

  $ git clone git://github.com/jodosha/click-to-globalize.git
  $ rake click

• Create tickets at the Sushistar Lighthouse Page.
• Create a patches and add as attachement to the tickets.

Repository

http://github.com/jodosha/click-to-globalize/tree/master

Credits

Javascript tests are based on Prototype test libs.

Vote

If you find it useful feel free to add to your favs on agilewebdevelopment.com.

Copyright

Copyright © 2007 - 2008 http://lucaguidi.com, released under the MIT license.

Tutorials

• Getting Started --high resolution
  
• Getting Started
  
• Restrict The Access
  
• Text Area Transformation
  
• Formatting
  
• How to Prevent XSS
  

The video tutorial for Click to Globalize is now available in high resolution: Click To Globalize: Getting Started.

Often our model objects leaning toward to be confused or noisy, due to validations DSLs. Imagine a class Answer, with an attribute, that should be exactly a string representation of a boolean. Ok, I know it's an odd example, but: it's trivial enough to make this example clear, and.. It happened to me to deal with this situation. :-P

class Answer < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates_inclusion_of :value, :in => %w( true false ),
                         :message => "Should be exactly true or false."
end

Now, we try to clean-up a bit this code.
First, create a file named validations.rb into lib, then copy and paste this code:

module ActiveRecord
  module Validations
    module ClassMethods
      @@boolean_values = %w( true false )
      @@validates_boolean_msg = "Should be exactly #{@@boolean_values.join(' or ')}."

      # Check if the value is a boolean: <tt>true</tt> or <tt>false</tt>.
      def validates_boolean(*attr_names)
        configuration = { :message   => @@validates_boolean_msg,
                          :in        => @@boolean_values }

       configuration.update(attr_names.pop) if attr_names.last.is_a?(Hash)
       validates_inclusion_of attr_names, configuration
      end
    end
  end
end

Then we are going to add the following line at the end of environment.rb

require 'validations'

Let's clean the code:

class Answer < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates_boolean :value
end

Is it better? Maybe.. ;-)

I have finished to work on Click To Globalize, to made it Rails 2.0 compatible.

What's Changed?

All and nothing: from the user point of view, the plugin has the same behaviors of the previous version. My recent activity was a refactoring, now it:

• Works with CSRF Killer
• Works with Prototype 1.6.0.1 and Scriptaculous 1.8.0.1
• Works with rewritten version of Scriptaculous Ajax.InPlaceEditor
• Works with new Prototype events handling
• Uses new Prototype's Element#addMethods and Function#wrap to add methods and AOP
• Uses Protoype Hash#get, instead of square brackets
• Uses .html.erb as helper, instead of .rhtml
• Has a more clean installation/disinstallation process
• Has DRYed up tests
• Hasn't prototype.js into the packaging

How To Use It?

Rails 2.0

Rails 1.2.x

For a detailed guide, howtos, snippets, video-tutorials and other infos, please visit the Click To Globalize page.

As I previously announced, I'm working on Rails 2.0 compatibility for Click To Globalize.

I decided to move the stuff for Rails 1.2.x to for-1.2.x branch and continue the porting into trunk.

How To Install

Rails 2.0

Rails 1.2.x

As you already know, Rails 2.0 it's shipped with updated version of Prototype and Scriptaculous.

Prototype team has committed some breaking changes (e.g. Hash class), and Scriptaculous now has a brand new, rewritten InPlaceEditon.

Those elements are fundamental for Click To Globalize and I'm working on new version for Rails 2.0.

Be patient, I'll soon release it.

Acts As Resource is ready for Rails 2.0!!

This plugin combines both ActiveRecord and ActiveResource features in one class. It easily allows to deal with a remote REST service or with a local database.

If you want read more visit the plugin page or install with:

$ ./script/plugin install http://dev.23labs.net/svn/rails/plugins/acts_as_resource