Cappuccino on Rails. CappuccinoResource (CR) is like ActiveResource for your Cappuccino project!

Install with ease using the Narwhal package manager

tusk update && tusk install CappuccinoResource

Once that completes, you can simply @import it into your project

@import <CappuccinoResource/CRBase.j>

Optionally, install manually by copying /Framework/CappuccinoResource/*.j into your project and @import CRBase.j where needed

    @import "CRBase.j"

There is now an open-source demo application demonstrating basic usage. The demo is available on Heroku, and the source is available on GitHub. For more detailed instructions, read on.

Make sure your RESTful controllers render json. You can take or leave the respond_to block depending on your needs.

Rails 2 Example:

class PostsController < ApplicationController

  def index
    @posts = Post.all

    respond_to do |format|
      format.html
      format.json { render :json => @posts }
    end
  end

  # other actions ...
end

Rails 3 Example:

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  respond_to :html, :json

  def index
    @posts = Post.all
    respond_with(@posts)
  end

  # other actions ...
end

Create a class which inherits from CR:

@implementation Post : CappuccinoResource
{
    CPString title        @accessors;
    CPString body         @accessors;
    CPDate   publishedOn;
    BOOL     isViewable;
}

- (JSObject)attributes
{
    return {
      "post": {
        "title":title,
        "body":body,
        "published_on":[publishedOn toDateString],
        "is_viewable":isViewable
      }
    };
}

The attributes instance method MUST be declared in your class for it to save properly.

CR performs naïve class pluralization (it just adds an "s"). If your class name has a more complex inflection, you can simply override the resourcePath class method. For instance, a Person class:

@implementation Person : CappuccinoResource
{
    CPString name;
}

+ (CPURL)resourcePath
{
    return [CPURL URLWithString:@"/people"];
}

- (JSObject)attributes
{
    return {"person":{"name":name}};
}

@end

Using your new class should feel familiar to Rails devs.

Instantiate a blank Post object

var post = [Post new];

Optionally declare attributes at the same time. JSON feels like Ruby hashes!

var post = [Post new:{"title":"First Post!","body":"Lorem and stuff"}];

Just like in ActiveResource, create = new + save

var post = [Post create:{"title":"First Post!","body":"Lorem and stuff"}];

Get all the posts from Rails

var posts = [Post all];
[posts class]; // CPArray
[[posts objectAtIndex:0] class]; // Post

You can fetch a resource with its identifier...

var post = [Post find:@"4"];

Change its title...

[post setTitle:@"Shiny New Name"];

And save it in your Rails back-end.

[post save];

Deleting is just as easy

[post destroy];

You can also run find with JSON paramaters (or a CPDictionary)

var myPost = [Post findWithParams:{"title":"Oh Noes!"}];
[myPost class]; // Post

Or the same thing with a collection

var posts = [Post allWithParams:{"body":"happy"}];
[posts class]; // CPArray
[[posts objectAtIndex:0] class]; // Post

The parameters will get serialized and be available to your Rails controller's params hash. It's up to Rails to return the appropriate records.

You don't need to use the default Rails id in your URLS. For example, if you'd rather use the login attribute as a unique identifier, overwrite your class's identifierKey class method like this:

+ (CPString)identifierKey
{
    return @"login";
}

CR will take care of the rest.

There are multiple events you can observe in the life cycle of a CR object. The notification names are comprised of the object's class name followed by the event name. So, for a Movie class which inherits from CR, the list of observable events are:

• MovieResourceWillLoad
• MovieResourceDidLoad
• MovieCollectionWillLoad
• MovieCollectionDidLoad
• MovieResourceWillSave
• MovieResourceWillCreate
• MovieResourceWillUpdate
• MovieResourceDidSave
• MovieResourceDidCreate
• MovieResourceDidUpdate
• MovieResourceDidNotSave
• MovieResourceDidNotCreate
• MovieResourceDidNotUpdate
• MovieResourceWillDestroy
• MovieResourceDidDestroy

One thing worth pointing out; whenever you try to save a resource, it will post 2 notifications per event. The first is the Will/Did/DidNot Save notification. The second is either Will/Did/DidNot Create or Will/Did/DidNot Update depending on what type of a save it is.

Please do! Like so:

1. Fork CR
2. Pass all tests (see below)
3. Create a topic branch - git checkout -b my_branch
4. Push to your branch - git push origin my_branch
5. Pass all tests
6. Create an Issue with a link to your branch

Please include passing tests with any proposed additions/modifications. To run the test suite:

1. Install ojmoq: sudo tusk install ojmoq
2. Run tests with: jake test OR ojtest Tests/*Test.j OR autotest

Much of this library was inspired by other open-source projects, the most noteworthy of which are:

1. CPActiveRecord
2. ObjectiveResource

I'd like to thank their authors for opening their source code to others.

• Infer -attributes from ivars (maybe with @property?)
• Better error handling
• Validations
• Callbacks
• Nested Models

Jerod Santo

Just me so far!

MIT Stylee