Helper Methods

Tasks

Write some tests

Read Sections 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the Rails Guide on Testing. These are the kinds of tests that we write most frequently.

Then, take a stab at writing some System tests to lock down the current functionality of the application. After you've spent 20-30 minutes on it, you're allowed to look at the example specs in test/system/example_movies_test.rb.

Clean-ups that we already know how to do

• Anywhere you see the old Hash syntax (:symbol keys with hash rockets =>): switch to the new Hash syntax.
• Anywhere you see optional curly braces around Hash arguments: remove them.
• Where possible, drop render statements.
• When providing keys to params, use Symbols. (Unlike with most hashes, you can use Strings and Symbols interchangeably as keys to params.)

Refactor routes

• Re-write routes using more succinct forms of get, post, patch, delete, and, ultimately, resources.

First new helper methods

• Replace all references to URLs outside of config/routes.rb with route helper methods.
• Replace all <a> elements in view templates with link_to methods.

Forms in general

• Replace all <form> elements in view templates with form_with methods.
• Replace all <input> elements with text_field_tag, number_field_tag, text_area_tag, etc.

Forms specifically for model objects

• Change the names of inputs so that values in the params hash are nested within an inner hash.
• Assign all of the values at once using ActiveRecord's mass assignment ability via new or update.
• Whitelist which attributes you want to allow to be mass assigned from params with params.require(:movie).permit(:title, :description).
• Switch from form_with(url:) to form_with(model:)
• Switch from text_field_tag, etc; to form.text_field, etc.
• Move form to partial and re-use wherever possible.