Rails - Apr 2005 - Methods on models

It''s not that hard to find out what methods are on a model through
irb, but I was thinking about it and I wonder if it would make sense
to have a script that connects to the database for each model and
finds out all the fields available as well as self inspecting on the
associations.  Once it has all this information it automatically
inserts an Rdoc description at the top of each class that lists all
the methods and accessors both for each field in the database and the
methods added from the associations.  Essentially it would
automatically create the documentation of the database in and the
model within the model.

On second thought it might make more sense to create a ModelName.doc
file that has all this extended documentation that way a) if we wrote
documentation in the actual model class it could be inserted into the
generated doc, and b) we wouldn''t be overwriting anything written in
the model class that the framework is actually using.

This would make the model classes a little more transparent without
needing to recheck the docs but wouldn''t add extra overhead on the
code were actually writing.  I don''t know if rdoc can be configured to
read a generated file for when you generate the actual docs, but it
seems like something along these lines would be really nice.

Any other ideas?

Charles Comstock

On Saturday, April 2, 2005, 7:08:19 AM, Charles wrote, in part:
> On second thought it might make more sense to create a ModelName.doc
> file that has all this extended documentation that way a) if we wrote
> documentation in the actual model class it could be inserted into the
> generated doc, and b) we wouldn''t be overwriting anything written
in
> the model class that the framework is actually using.
> This would make the model classes a little more transparent without
> needing to recheck the docs but wouldn''t add extra overhead on the
> code were actually writing.  I don''t know if rdoc can be
configured to
> read a generated file for when you generate the actual docs, but it
> seems like something along these lines would be really nice.
RDoc can "include" files.  So I think the process could go something
like this:

  $ rake insert-db-doc

    # For each model class, inserts a line "include
../../doc/model/ModelName.doc"

    # For each model class, generate doc/model/ModelName.doc

I don''t see what benefit this would provide, though.  You''d be
looking
at a browser to see what attributes are in the model.  Might as well
look at the browser to see what attributes are in the database (e.g.
phpMyAdmin etc.)

Unless you had something different in mind.

The complaints people make about having to look elsewhere for their
model information don''t ring true to me.  Just print out your model
information and be done with it.

Gavin