Tips of the Day

debugging django SQL problems
documenting convention for Rails routes

Debugging Django SQL problems

You can install Django debug toolbar middleware, or you can set a breakpoint and inspect queries that have been run on the current database connection:

from django import db
db.connection.queries[0]['sql']

'queries' is an array of dicts. The useful keys on the dict are 'sql' and 'raw_sql'.

Documenting Convention for Rails Routes

I started a mini-hackathon for a beer review app I've wanted to write for a while. While I was scaffolding, I thought it'd be useful to document the routes inline with their controller:

class ReviewsController < ApplicationController
  # beer_reviews(@beer) => GET /beers/:beer_id/reviews
  def index
  end

  # new_beer_review(@beer) => GET /beers/:beer_id/reviews/new
  # new_review             => GET /reviews/new
  def new
  end

  # beer_reviews(@beer) => POST /beers/:beer_id/reviews
  # reviews             => POST /beers/reviews
  def create
  end
end

The benefit is that for any given controller you can always add '_path' or '_url' to the end of the comment without having to run rake routes and grepping for the controller/action pair. This convention also lets you see every possible way of accessing a given action instead of only the basic method.