#iChat using Sinatra and Active Record

Objectives

• integrate Active Record with Sinatra
• make an http request from a script (rather than a web browser)
• use a model to access data from a database
• display data from a database in a view

Resources

• http://rubydoc.info/gems/activerecord/4.0.0/frames
• https://github.com/janko-m/sinatra-activerecord
• http://danneu.com/posts/15-a-simple-blog-with-sinatra-and-active-record-some-useful-tools/
• https://github.com/typhoeus/typhoeus
• https://github.com/cldwalker/tux

Instructions

Setup

--note: '$' means command should be run on command line --

• fork this repo git clone
• $cd repo_name
• $bundle install
• $rake db:migrate
• $shotgun
• Open up a second terminal tab and run $tux
• In the post_message.rb script modify the uri variable to match your the port your server is running on. For Example:

  == Shotgun/Thin on http://127.0.0.1:9393/
  >> Thin web server (v1.5.0 codename Knife)
  >> Maximum connections set to 1024
  >> Listening on 127.0.0.1:9393, CTRL+C to stop

• In the above example '127.0.0.1:9393' is your uri

Posting a Params hash from a ruby script

• first try posting a hash to a url Typhoeus.post(uri, :body => {:key => 'value'}) and put the debugger into your post route. Then, in the console print out "params." You can do this in your post_message.rb script like this:

  uri = "127.0.0.1:9393/"
  Typhoeus.post(uri, :body => {:key => 'value'})

• When you do, you should {key => 'value'} printed in the debugger.
• You access this is the same way that you do when using a form params[:key] #=> 'value'
• Now, using Typhoeus gem, post the sender, receiver and message variables to the post '/'

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NOTE: When doing this, keep in mind what the params hash looked like when your input came from a form, this is no different except you are directly passing the hash to the url from the ruby script.

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• Modify the post '/' route to create a message based on user input from the post_message.rb script

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HINT: Thanks to active record magic, you don't have to assign them all individually. Take a look at the create method

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• Modify the get '/reset' route to delete all messages in the database.
• At this point, in another terminal tab you should be able to run the post_message.rb script and it should successfully post to the server.
• You will know it works by going into the 'tux' terminal and typing Message.all. You should see the message that you sent.

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NOTE: An easy way to think about tux is to relate it to the debugger. You have access to all of the models in your application. You have access to all of the models in your app!

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• Now, modify the messages view to display all of the messages in the database.
• Your resulting view should look something like this: