Setup Rails with Postgresql

Everytime I set up a Rails project, there are many braindead steps that need to be followed. Instead of doing a web search each time I need to get an app setup, I follow these simple sequence of instructions.

The first thing to do is to create the rails directory structure. Many Rails tutorials assume SQLite or MySQL. Here in ivy covered UC Berkeley, our database of choice is Postgresql.

rails --database=postgresql myapp

Postgresql

(as postgres admin user)
psql template1

create role myapp with createdb login password 'myapp';  // 'login' is optional if you plan to use psql
// with newer versions of Rails, 'rake db:create:all' will create all the databases listed in config/database.yml
select * from pg_user;    // verify user created
select * from pg_shadow;  // sysid listed here
create database myapp_development owner myapp;
create database myapp_test owner myapp;
create database myapp_production owner myapp;

(in RAILS_ROOT)
rake db:migrate

If rake complains that it can't load the file 'postgres', then you are missing the postgresql database adapter. You can get it via:

sudo gem install pg

If that fails, read the wiki page about it. For the lazy, you can simply install the slower pure ruby adapter 'postgres-pr'

The 'postgres' gem is unmaintained, and a new fork of the project 'pg'.

Config

Keep your database.yml DRY. Edit database.yml as follows:

common: &common
  adapter: postgresql
  username: myapp
  password: password # from psql setup, see Postgresql

development:
  <<: *common
  database: myapp_development

test:
  <<: *common
  database: myapp_test

production:
  <<: *common
  database: myapp_production

Subversion

The following keeps your repository squeaky clean:

mv myapp myapp-tmp
mkdir -p myapp/{branches,tags}
mv myapp-tmp myapp/trunk
cd myapp/trunk
rm -rf log/* tmp/*
mv config/database{,-example}.yml
svn ps svn:ignore '*' log
svn ps svn:ignore '*' tmp
svn ps svn:ignore 'database.yml' config

Updating Stuff

To update rails, do

sudo gem install -y rails