Now I need to decide if this is the right tool for the application I
have in mind.
The problem is that as far as I can tell, RoR relies on the underlying
data coming from a relational database. A lot of code is provided to
deal with the creation/migration/selection/modification of database
records.
However, my application will deal with configuration files - things
like /etc type config files.
If I was using SuSE, I would develop a yast applet, but I want
something generic and web based (webmin like if you will).
Is there an infrastructure to deal with arbitrary data format? XML?
unstructured files?
If not, how difficult do you think it will be to develop such an
infrastructure?
Are there projects out there, already doing rails based webmin-like
tools?
I don't know of any projects off the top of my head, but you could
certainly use general config files. You'd just need to write the code
that handles the reading, validation, and writing. Basically you
could use the entire Rails stack except for AR.
Now I need to decide if this is the right tool for the application I
have in mind.
The problem is that as far as I can tell, RoR relies on the underlying
data coming from a relational database. A lot of code is provided to
deal with the creation/migration/selection/modification of database
records.
However, my application will deal with configuration files - things
like /etc type config files.
If I was using SuSE, I would develop a yast applet, but I want
something generic and web based (webmin like if you will).
Is there an infrastructure to deal with arbitrary data format? XML?
unstructured files?
If not, how difficult do you think it will be to develop such an
infrastructure?
Are there projects out there, already doing rails based webmin-like
tools?
Thanks,
Dan
I don’t know of any projects off the top of my head, but you could
certainly use general config files. You’d just need to write the code
that handles the reading, validation, and writing. Basically you
could use the entire Rails stack except for AR.
Pat
I understand. Don’t know how hard it is, I mean to stick the new code into the framework, but conceptually this is what I though.
Arti (http://arti-ar.cfcl.com/) currently pulls all of its data
from a set of YAML files that are generated by batch-mode scripts.
The source code is available for online inspection; alternatively,
you can simply download the package.
"Arti is an attempt to improve the documentation infrastructure for
Ruby in general and Rails in particular"
I have no idea how this is relevant to my question.
I still have no idea what AR is. Nor do I understand to what "package"
you refer.
[You're into Technical writing, no? I would have expected a somewhat
clearer answer. No offense please]
Arti (http://arti-ar.cfcl.com/) currently pulls all of its data
from a set of YAML files that are generated by batch-mode scripts.
The source code is available for online inspection; alternatively,
you can simply download the package.
Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development
>From the web site you refer to:
"Arti is an attempt to improve the documentation infrastructure for
Ruby in general and Rails in particular"
I have no idea how this is relevant to my question.
I still have no idea what AR is. Nor do I understand to what "package"
you refer.
[You're into Technical writing, no? I would have expected a somewhat
clearer answer. No offense please]
Dan
If I remember your original question, AR is ActiveRecord and is the basic class in Rails that does the Object-Relational Mapping (from Ruby objects <->a relational DB record such as one in a table in MySQL) therefore providing your application with the data that it needs. If you want to move to a non-DB structure, I believe this is the best you'd need to do without (I think that's what one of the replies to your question was).
