Rails 2.3 Nested Object Forms: I’m not Crazy about Them

February 24th, 2009 by

I’m a couple of weeks late, but I just finished reviewing Rails 2.3 Nested Object Forms. While a very nice and “magical” feature, I’ve got to admit that I’m really not that crazy about how it works.

Let me be the first to admit that there’s no one right way to do things. In fact, I’m writing this post particularly because I have a few objections to how this functionality is ultimately exposed, and I’d like to hear arguments from those who disagree. In other words, let me acknowledge the possibility that I am the misguided one.

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Using ActiveRecord’s to_xml to produce custom xml including deep level associations

September 10th, 2008 by

ActiveRecord provides a powerful method to all its records called to_xml. Most web developers using RoR should be familiar with its usage and hopefully use it for their simple xml production needs. But what do you do when you need to produce xml that is selective, includes associations, or contains custom tags? There are many ways to manipulate to_xml’s output and I’ll explain a few below.
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