resetting password for user in authlogic

I needed to quickly reset a user's password in an Rails application that used authlogic. I didn't have the nice 'request reminder' stuff set up, so I used the console instead:

././script/console production

...

>> forgetfulUser = User.find(:first, :conditions => {:login => 'richard'})

...

...

>> forgetfulUser.password = 'newPassw0rd'

>> forgetfulUser.password_confirmation = 'newPassw0rd'

>> forgetfulUser.save

and it was done.

associationtypemismatch expected got array

I'm building an app a bit at a time. Sufficient time elapses between development effort that I forget some basic stuff.

Something that I haven't forgotten is how often I come across this error when I've made some changes to my models and edit forms:

ActiveRecord::AssociationTypeMismatch (MyModelName(#-613518908) expected, got Array(#-608606448)):

This typically means that I've forgotten:

accepts_nested_attributes_for

in my model.

rails won't run in production

I've been working on a Rails app (2.3.5).

I'm hosting on modest hardware and chose Nginx and Thin to hopefully get the most performance out of my app.

My problem was that my app wouldn't run in production. It worked fine in development, but not in production.

There were a couple of problems:

1. I was using a legacy database, and like non-pluralised table names, development picked up 'ActiveRecord::Base.pluralize_table_names = false' in my config/environment.rb, but I didn't seem to propagate to production. I added in 'ActiveRecord::Base.pluralize_table_names = false' into ./config/environments/production.rb
2. Thin wouldn't start. Starting thin with -D allowed me to start it not daemonized, and then I could see the problem: 'Missing the Rails  gem. Please `gem install -v= rails`, update your RAILS_GEM_VERSION'.
   This is Thin reacting against rack version 1.1.0 apparently.
   gem uninstall --version '> 1.0.1' rack fixed that.

One less thing on my todo list.

reserved words in MVC

There is no other words to express my disappointment with object relational mapping framworks than: woeful

I have played with three MVC frameworks (Catalyst/perl, rails/ruby, grails/groovy) and by one metric, Rails is pittyful. That metric is narrow but significant (in my opinion) and is described below.

The object-relational mapping frameworks in question are:

Catalyst/DBIC
Rails/ActiveRecord
Grails/Hibernate

My issue is that all these frameworks have implicit 'reserved words'. These typically throw an obscure error if you use in your Models because they collide with either framework or DB reserved words.


Let me draw up a table:

Framework	# reserved words	notes
DBIC	0 + db dependent	DB reserved words are not permitted.
Hibernate	0 + db dependent	DB reserved words are not permitted.
ActiveRecord	7 + db dependent	based on Reserved words in Rails blog post from 2007

So, there is an important uncertainty here: DB reserved words.

Irrespective of db reserved words, the frameworks differed on DB reserved words - so your models aren't portable across DBs. Am I alone in feeling this is a real lost opportunity for relational mapping frameworks?

I have still not seen a reason why these 'reserved words' restrictions exist
All (?) decent DBs will (I think) allow you arbetary table names with by quoting db names...
From an architecture perspective, having reserved words for something which is supposed by be abstract is just perverse.

I await the end of 'reserved words'.

UPDATE: This post is poorly researched. I discovered an additional resource in a blog post by Daniel Butler. However, my experience still points to Catalyst being an good choice of MVC framework when dealing with large legacy databases.

postgresql search_path with ruby on rails

I studied (amongh other things) electrical engineering at Univsrity. One of the lectures said that you only need one forumal to master the subject: V=IR. However, the lecture warned, you have to know that forumla inside out.

Indeed, you could argue that V=IR is a simplification of Maxwells law, so V=IR not only covers you for EE, but a large chunk of physics (astro, plasma for example) as well.

Some times, I think MVC frameworks are similar.

Anyways... .I'm finding myself using Rails today. I've used it before with some success but didn't like the way it wanted to dominate the DB. My current thinking is that this approach is alright unless you want to integrate a legacy DB.

I'm integrating a legacy DB. It's in PostgreSQL and it uses schema namespaces. Namespaces are really worth the effort. They look great if you use PgAdminIII.

I struggled for a hour or so with my namespaces and then I discovered that I could include a search_path in ./config/database.yml. Now everything is working well again.