Moving to Rails 2.0

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I know … it’s like exercising, you know you’ll be better afterwards but you don’t feel like going trough the pain right now. Updating a framework can be a pain, here’s a short list summarizing what I had to do to migrate RefactorMyCode from Rails 1.2.3 to 2.0 (Preview). I hope this makes it easier for you!

0. Pistonize it!

Instead of using the classic way of freezing Rails in you app tree (rake rails:freeze:edge TAG=rel_2-0-0_PR), I’d recommend using Piston:

piston import http://svn.rubyonrails.org/rails/tags/rel_2-0-0_PR/ vendor/rails

This way, you’ll be able to make changes to Rails code and keep them while updating your copy!

1. Update your stuff

Update configs, scripts and javascripts:

rake rails:update

2. Move your session config to environment.rb

Add this in your environment.rb and remove the session ... line in application.rb:

# Your secret key for verifying cookie session data integrity.
# If you change this key, all old sessions will become invalid!
config.action_controller.session = {
  :session_key => '_app_name_session_id',
  :secret      => 'your secret key'
}

To compute your secret key:

require 'digest/md5'
puts [now = Time.now, now.usec, rand(0), $$, 'you_app_name'].inject(Digest::MD5.new) { |md5, e| md5 << e.to_s }

3. Split environment.rb

Rails now recommend putting your specific config code in config/initializers. Move everything outside Rails::Initializer.run do |config| ... end into separate files. For starter, create config/initializers/inflections.rb and config/initializers/mime_types.rb and move what was in environment.rb. Split as much as you can in files with descriptive names.

4. Singleton resource, plural controller name

If you were using singleton resource: map.resouce :account, you’ll need to pluralize your controller name. In this case AccountsController. Not sure if it makes more sense, but follows the convention to pluralize controller names I guess…

5. Rename your views

Rails 2.0 brings a beautiful view naming convention:

[name].[content type].[template engine]

eg.: show.html.erb or create.js.rjs

Renaming manually can be pretty painful. Jamie created a Rake task for this.

6. Fix the plugins

Expects some plugins to break. In my case, asset_packager broke, but fixing it was simple: synching method signature for compute_public_path.

I’d recommend checking plugins compatibility before doing the jump. Read the doc. Or if you’re feeling adventurous, give it a try.

7. Add Request Forgery Protection

Cross-site request forgery can be hard to protect from. Not with Rails 2.0.

Add this to your application.rb

# See ActionController::RequestForgeryProtection for details
# If you're using the Cookie Session Store you can leave out the :secret
protect_from_forgery :secret => 'same_as_the_session_one'

And this to your config/environments/test.rb:

# Disable request forgery protection in test environment
config.action_controller.allow_forgery_protection    = false

Good luck!

Update: Paolo sent me an article he wrote for upgrading routes to 2.0 w/ a script, nice!

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