mgt

Mgt

Mgt is a MVC mini-framework, modeled after rails. Like Rails, Mgt is built using Ruby. The framework also comes with a minified ORM.

Mgt is ligthweight and hence fit for simple and quick applications. It makes available some of the great features of rails.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'mgt'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install mgt

Usage

When creating a new Mgt app, a few things need to be setup and a few rules adhered to. Mgt basically follows the same folder structure as a typical rails app with all of the model, view and controller code packed inside of an app folder, configuration based code placed inside a config folder and the main database file in a db folder.

View a sample app built using mgt framework Here

Key Features

Routing

Routing with Mgt deals with directing requests to the appropriate controllers. A sample route file is:

mgt supports GET, DELETE, PATCH, POST, PUT requests.

TodoApplication.routes.draw do
  get "/users", to: "users#index"
  get "/users/new", to: "users#new"
  post "/users", to: "users#create"
  get "/users/:id", to: "users#show"
  get "/users/:id/edit", to: "users#edit"
  patch "/users/:id", to: "users#update"
  put "/users/:id", to: "users#update"
  delete "/users/:id", to: "users#destroy"
end

Models

All models to be used with the Hemp framework are to inherit from the ActiveRecord class provided by Mgt, in order to access the rich ORM functionalities provided. The ActiveRecord class acts as an interface between the model class and its database representation. A sample model file is provided below:

class Fellow < Hemp::BaseRecord
  table :users
  property :id, type: :integer, primary_key: true
  property :first_name, type: :text, nullable: false
  property :email, type: :boolean, nullable: false

  create_table
end

The table method provided stores the table name used while creating the table record in the database.

The property method is provided to declare table columns, and their attributes. The first argument to property is the column name, while subsequent hash arguments are used to provide information about attributes.

The type argument represents the data type of the column. Supported data types by Hemp are:

• integer (for numeric values)
• boolean (for boolean values [true or false])
• text (for alphanumeric values)

The primary_key argument is used to specify that the column should be used as the primary key of the table. If this is an integer, the value is auto-incremented by the database.

The nullable argument is used to specify whether a column should have null values, or not.

While creating models, the id property declaration is optional. If this is is not provided, the Hemp ORM adds it automatically, and sets it as the primary key. Thus, it should only be set if you'd like to use a different type as the primary key.

On passing in the table name, and its properties, a call should be made to the create_table method to persist the model to database by creating the table.

Controllers

Controllers are key to the MVC structure, as they handle receiving requests, interacting with the database, and providing responses. Controllers are placed in the controllers folder, which is nested in the app folder.

All controllers should inherit from the BaseController class provided by Hemp to inherit methods which simplify accessing request parameters and returning responses by rendering views.

A sample structure for a controller file is:

class UsersController < Mgt::BaseController
  def index
    @users = User.all
  end

  def new
  end

  def show
    fellow
    render :show_full
  end

  def destroy
    fellow.destroy
    redirect_to "/"
  end
end

Instance variables set by the controllers are passed to the routes while rendering responses.

Explicitly calling render to render template files is optional. If it's not called by the controller action, then it's done automatically by the framework with an argument that's the same name as the action. Thus, you can decide to call render explicitly when you want to render a view with a name different from the action.

Views

Currently, view templates are handled through the Tilt gem, with the Erubis template engine. See https://github.com/rtomayko/tilt for more details.

View templates are mapped to controller actions and must assume the same nomenclature as their respective actions.Erbuis is used as the templating engine and files which are views are required to have the .erb file extension after the .html extension. Views are placed inside the app/views folder. A view to be rendered for the new action in the UsersController for example is saved as new.html.erb in the users folder, nested in the views folder.

External Dependencies

The Hemp framework has a few dependencies. These are listed below, with links to source pages for each.

• sqlite3 - https://github.com/sparklemotion/sqlite3-ruby
• erubis - https://rubygems.org/gems/erubis
• bundler - https://github.com/bundler/bundler
• rake - https://github.com/ruby/rake
• rack - https://github.com/rack/rack
• rack-test - https://github.com/brynary/rack-test
• rspec - https://github.com/rspec/rspec
• tilt - https://github.com/rtomayko/tilt

Running the tests

Test files are placed inside the spec folder and have been split into two sub folders, one for unit tests and the other for integration tests. You can run the tests from your command line client by typing rspec spec

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake test to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Limitations

This version of the gem does not

support model relationships. implement callbacks. support migration generation. generate a schema.

Contributing

To contribute to this work:

1. Fork it ( https://github.com/[andela-oosiname]/mgt )
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create a new Pull Request
6. Wait

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.