Base migration file

rubyonrails-talk
1

I'm a total noob to RoR so I've started my app from scratch countless times. As I figure out what I need in my DB I've been adding it to a file 001_build.rb - so when i restart AGAIN i just run the migration and i'm back up and running rather quickly. Is this a BAD idea?

It hasn't been an issue until today when I ran my first scaffold_resource - which ran fine until i pulled it up in the browser and it had no clue that my db was already up and running with all the tables and fields I needed.

I can run the scaffold_resource with all the field names and types, but i have NO clue how to force the use of a foreign key like i've been using in my migration file. This is what I've been using:

execute "alter table pages add constraint fk_pages_families         foreign key (family_id) references family(id)"

So, if i could figure out how to do the above in my scaffold_resource command I would be all set.

Anyone have some insight for me? Thank you for your consideration and time!

2

I'm a total noob to RoR so I've started my app from scratch countless times. As I figure out what I need in my DB I've been adding it to a file 001_build.rb - so when i restart AGAIN i just run the migration and i'm back up and running rather quickly. Is this a BAD idea?

Migrations are intended to be cumulative, so there's really no reason to keep everything in the first migration file. When you run rake db:migrate, all of the necessary migrations are run to bring the database up to date. One reason *not* to put it all in one large file is that it makes properly defining the down method (for undoing a migration) more complicated.

I can run the scaffold_resource with all the field names and types, but i have NO clue how to force the use of a foreign key like i've been using in my migration file. This is what I've been using:

execute "alter table pages add constraint fk_pages_families         foreign key (family_id) references family(id)"

So, if i could figure out how to do the above in my scaffold_resource command I would be all set.

I always excecute SQL in my migrations rather than using the Ruby-language migration SQL DSL, so I'll leave this to someone else.

Michael Glaesemann grzm seespotcode net

3

Thanks for the insight Michael! I can see how the down method could help down the road! I'll quit using the one LARGE migration file.

On that note, does anyone know how to require a foreign key in the generate command? I currently have it in the rake file, but I don't know how to do the same thing from the command line.

Thank you.