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RailRoadyRailRoady generates Rails 3 model (AcitveRecord, Mongoid, Datamapper) and controller UML diagrams as cross-platform .svg files, as well as in the DOT language.
Code is based on the original “railroad” gem, patched and maintained over the years. Lineage can be traced via GitHub.
I (Preston Lee) am not trying to hijack Peter Hoeg or Javier’s project, but rather create a dedicated, lean gem that can be used without major issue on Rails v3 projects. Rails v2 is not supported.
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System RequirementsYou MUST have the the following utilities available at the command line.
* `dot` and `neato`. * `sed`, which should already be available on all sane UNIX systems.
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Mac usersMacPorts users can install in via ‘sudo port install graphviz`. Brew user can install via `brew install graphviz`.
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Ubuntu usersUbuntu users can install in via ‘sudo apt-get install graphviz`.
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UsageThe easiest (and recommend) usage is to include railroady as a development dependency with your Rails 3 Gemfile, like so…
group :development, :test do gem 'railroady' end
…and then run the master rake task…
rake diagram:all
This should generate four doc/*.svg files that can be opened in (most) web browsers as well as dedicate document viewers supporting the Scalable Vector Graphics format.
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Alternate UsageAlternatively, you may run the ‘railroady’ command-line program at the Rails application’s root directory. You can redirect its output to a .dot file or pipe it to the dot or neato utilities to produce a graphic. Model diagrams are intended to be processed using dot and controller diagrams are best processed using neato.
railroady [options] command
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OptionsCommon options:
-b, --brief Generate compact diagram (no attributes nor methods) -s, --specify file1[,fileN] Specify given files only for the diagram (can take a glob pattern) -e, --exclude file1[,fileN] Exclude given files (can take a glob pattern) -i, --inheritance Include inheritance relations -l, --label Add a label with diagram information (type, date, migration, version) -o, --output FILE Write diagram to file FILE -v, --verbose Enable verbose output (produce messages to STDOUT)
Models diagram options:
-a, --all Include all models (not only ActiveRecord::Base derived) --all-columns Show all columns (not just content columns) --hide-magic Hide magic field names --hide-types Hide attributes type --hide-through Hide through associations -j, --join Concentrate edges -m, --modules Include modules -p, --plugins-models Include plugins models -t, --transitive Include transitive associations (through inheritance)
Controllers diagram options:
--hide-public Hide public methods --hide-protected Hide protected methods --hide-private Hide private methods
Other options:
-h, --help Show this message --version Show version and copyright
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Commands-M, --models Generate models diagram -C, --controllers Generate controllers diagram -A, --aasm Generate "acts as state machine" diagram
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Examplesrailroady -o models.dot -M Produces a models diagram to the file 'models.dot' railroady -a -i -o full_models.dot -M Models diagram with all classes showing inheritance relations railroady -M | dot -Tsvg > models.svg Model diagram in SVG format railroady -C | neato -Tpng > controllers.png Controller diagram in PNG format railroady -h Shows usage help
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Processing DOT filesTo produce a PNG image from model diagram generated by RailRoady you can issue the following command:
dot -Tpng models.dot > models.png
If you want to do the same with a controller diagram, use neato instead of dot:
neato -Tpng controllers.dot > controllers.png
If you want to produce SVG (vectorial, scalable, editable) files, you can do the following:
dot -Tsvg models.dot > models.svg neato -Tsvg controllers.dot > controllers.svg
Important: There is a bug in Graphviz tools when generating SVG files that cause a text overflow. You can solve this problem editing (with a text editor, not a graphical SVG editor) the file and replacing around line 12 “font-size:14.00;” by “font-size:11.00;”, or by issuing the following command (see “man sed”):
sed -i 's/font-size:14.00/font-size:11.00/g' file.svg
Note: For viewing and editing SVG there is an excellent opensource tool called Inkscape (similar to Adobe Illustrator. For DOT processing you can also use Omnigraffle (on Mac OS X).
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Rake TasksAs of Preston Lee’s Rails 3 modifications, including RailRoady as a project development dependency will automatically add a set of rake tasks to your project. Sweet! (Run ‘rake -T` to check them out.)
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RequirementsRailRoady has been tested with the following Ruby and Rails versions
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Ruby-
1.9.2+
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Rails-
3.0.3+
There are no additional requirements (nevertheless, all your Rails application requirements must be installed).
In order to view/export the DOT diagrams, you’ll need the processing tools from Graphviz.
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Website and Project Home¶ ↑
LicenseRailRoady is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
See LICENSE for details.
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CopyrightCopyright © 2007-2008 Javier Smaldone Copyright © 2009 Peter Hoeg Copyright © 2010 Preston Lee
See LICENSE for details.
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AuthorsSee AUTHORS for details.