Rails naming conventions

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Rails naming conventions

General Ruby conventions

Class names are CamelCase.

Methods and variables are snake_case.

Methods with a ? suffix will return a boolean.

Methods with a ! suffix mean one of two things: either the method operates destructively in some fashion, or it will raise and exception instead of failing (such as Rails models' #save! vs. #save).

In documentation, ::method_name denotes a class method, while #method_name denotes a instance method.

Database

Database tables use snake_case. Table names are plural.

Column names in the database use snake_case, but are generally singular.

Example:

+--------------------------+
| bigfoot_sightings        |
+------------+-------------+
| id         | ID          |
| sighted_at | DATETIME    |
| location   | STRING      |
| profile_id | FOREIGN KEY |
+------------+-------------+

+------------------------------+
| profiles                     |
+---------------------+--------+
| id                  | ID     |
| name                | STRING |
| years_of_experience | INT    |
+---------------------+--------+

Using the Generate Command

rails g scaffold Part user:references

• It adds a user_id column and also a belongs_to in the model.
• If you simply use: rails g scaffold Part user_id:integer ----> then belongs_to will be omitted from the model and you'll have to add that yourself.

Model

Model class names use CamelCase. These are singular, and will map automatically to the plural database table name.

Model attributes and methods use snake_case and match the column names in the database.

Model files go in app/models/#{singular_model_name}.rb.

Example:

# app/models/bigfoot_sighting.rb
class BigfootSighting < ActiveRecord::Base
  # This class will have these attributes: id, sighted_at, location
end

# app/models/profile.rb
class Profile < ActiveRecord::Base
  # Methods follow the same conventions as attributes
  def veteran_hunter?
    years_of_experience > 2
  end
end

Relations in models

Relations use snake_case and follow the type of relation, so has_one and belongs_to are singular while has_many is plural.

Rails expects foreign keys in the database to have an _id suffix, and will map relations to those keys automatically if the names line up.

Example:

# app/models/bigfoot_sighting.rb
class BigfootSighting < ActiveRecord::Base
  # This knows to use the profile_id field in the database
  belongs_to :profile
end

# app/models/profile.rb
class Profile < ActiveRecord::Base
  # This knows to look at the BigfootSighting class and find the foreign key in that table
  has_many :bigfoot_sightings
end

Controllers

Controller class names use CamelCase and have Controller as a suffix. The Controller suffix is always singular. The name of the resource is usually plural.

Controller actions use snake_case and usually match the standard route names Rails defines (index, show, new, create, edit, update, delete).

Controller files go in app/controllers/#{resource_name}_controller.rb.

Example:

# app/controllers/bigfoot_sightings_controller.rb
BigfootSightingsController < ApplicationController
  def index
    # ...
  end
  def show
    # ...
  end
  # etc
end

# app/controllers/profiles_controller.rb
ProfilesController < ApplicationController
  def show
    # ...
  end
  # etc
end

Routes

Route names are snake_case, and usually match the controller. Most of the time routes are plural and use the plural resources.

Singular routes are a special case. These use the singular resource and a singular resource name. However, they still map to a plural controller by default!

Example:

resources :bigfoot_sightings
# Users can only see their own profiles, so we'll use `/profile` instead
# of putting an id in the URL.
resource :profile

Views

View file names, by default, match the controller and action that they are tied to.

Views go in app/views/#{resource_name}/#{action_name}.html.erb.

Examples:

• app/views/bigfoot_sightings/index.html.erb
• app/views/bigfoot_sightings/show.html.erb
• app/views/profile/show.html.erb

Migration Based Conventions

Add fileds to table

rails generate migration add_fieldname_to_tablename fieldname:string

or

rails generate migration AddPartNumberToProducts

• Please remember that the table name is pluralized
• This creates a migration based on the above settings
• If you use the above conventions then you basically minimise the editing associated with your migration. You may though, be required to define and up and down methods in your migration file.

Remove field from table

generate migration RemovePartNumberFromProducts part_number:string

• is the rails convention for removing part_number from the Products table.

Change Column type in table

rails g migration change_date_format_in_my_table

• then change the actual migration to reflect the new column type

class ChangeDateFormatInMyTable < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def up
   change_column :my_table, :my_column, :datetime
  end

  def down
   change_column :my_table, :my_column, :date
  end
end

More resources

• ActiveRecord naming and schema conventions (including magic column names)
• Mind map of Rails conventions
• Migration and other cheat sheets here