BugMash Cheat Sheet¶

Here's a list of handy shortcuts for BugMashers.

Required software¶

If you're having trouble getting the Rails source code set up on your computer, use our Pre-flight Checklist as a guide, or drop by #railsbridge on Freenode IRC to ask for help.

Generating a Rails app on master branch¶

You can generate a quick sample application from the Rails source code tree by

cd railties
rake dev

This will create a new application named rails at the root of your Rails repository.

Testing Active Record¶

If you wish to test patches on Active Record, you'll have to generate test databases for MySQL. Otherwise, most of the Active Record tests won't pass.

rake mysql:build_databases

There is also a PostgreSQL task for doing the same job given you have PostgreSQL installed on your system.

rake postgresql:build_databases

When you're done testing patches, you can delete the generated databases.

rake mysql:drop_databases
rake postgresql:drop_databases

There are also useful tasks for deleting and regenerating databases if you need to refresh.

rake mysql:rebuild_databases
rake postgresql:rebuild_databases

If you're writing new tests for ActiveRecord, please try to reuse the existing test models instead of adding new ones.

Testing specified frameworks only¶

Running the whole test suite takes a lot of time? You can run tests in the individual Rails frameworks also. Just cd into the library you wish to test and rake test.

cd activesupport
rake test

Testing Active Record¶

Running rake test for Active Record will run tests for MySQL, SQLite3 and PostgreSQL. To run test individually based on different adapters:

rake test_mysql
rake test_postgresql
rake test_sqlite3

You should test all three of these widely-used database adapters if you're contributing to Active Record. See rake -T for all the adapters Rails supports, as this is only a fraction of them.

Testing Individual Files¶

Better yet, you can test a separate file for a speed boost.

rake test TEST=test/ordered_options_test.rb

If testing ActiveRecord and you've changed the schema, you have to initialize the database before running the test:

rake test_mysql TEST=test/cases/aaa_create_tables_test.rb # update the schema
rake test_mysql
TEST=test/cases/associations/has_many_through_associations_test.rb

Working with Rails and git¶

Getting the Rails source:

git clone git://github.com/rails/rails.git
cd rails
git branch--track 2-3-stable origin/2-3-stable

Working on the master (3.0) branch:

git checkout master

Working on the 2-3-stable branch:

git checkout 2-3-stable

Creating your own feature branch:

git checkout -b my_feature_branch

Apply a patch:

git apply <patch file>

Creating a patch:

git checkout master
git checkout -b my_feature_branch
(write and test code)
git commit -a -m "This is my great patch" 
git checkout master
git pull
git checkout my_feature_branch
git rebase master
rake (to be sure tests still patch)
git format-patch master --stdout > my_great_patch.diff

Patching both master and 2-3-stable:

First, follow above to create a patch for master. If the same patch applies cleanly to 2-3-stable, just say so in the Lighthouse ticket and the committer will apply it to both. Otherwise, you'll need to generate a separate patch for 2-3-stable (assuming that this issue should be patched on both branches):

git checkout 2-3-stable
git checkout -b my_feature_branch
(write and test code)
git commit -a -m "This is my great patch" 
git checkout 2-3-stable
git pull
git checkout my_feature_branch
git rebase 2-3-stable
rake (to be sure tests still patch)
git format-patch 2-3-stable --stdout > my_great_patch.diff

Editing someone else's patch:

First, apply the existing patch:

git checkout stable
git apply <patch file>

Then ... (we're waiting for advice from core on how they'd like this handled).