Pro Active Record
Databases with Ruby and Rails
Kevin Marshall, Chad Pytel, Jon Yurek
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Pro Active Record for Ruby: Databases with Ruby and Rails
Copyright © 2007 by Kevin Marshall, Chad Pytel, Jon Yurek
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ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-59059-847-4
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To my wife, Catherine, I love you . . . more.
—KM
To my wife, Rachel, I love you all the way to the moon, and back.
—CP
To my fiancée, Karen, for making everything fun and for making me happy.
—JY
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Contents at a Glance
Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
About the Technical Reviewer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
■CHAPTER 1 Introducing Active Record. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
■CHAPTER 2 Active Record and SQL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
■CHAPTER 3 Setting Up Your Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
■CHAPTER 4 Core Features of Active Record. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
■CHAPTER 5 Bonus Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
■CHAPTER 6 Active Record Testing and Debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
■CHAPTER 7 Working with Legacy Schema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
■CHAPTER 8 Active Record and the Real World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
■APPENDIX Active Record Methods in Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
■INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
v
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