A Series Of Tubes

This is a simple web development framework built in Ruby! It is currently under development, so stay tuned for more updates!

Sample Server | Live Link

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'a_series_of_tubes'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install a_series_of_tubes

A Series of Tubes is a toolset for creating simple RESTful websites in Ruby. If you are interested in learning how to use it in your project, check out the Sample Server for a suggested application structure.

There are five main components to A Series of Tubes:

Tubes are the individual routes users can navigate on your server. You can create a Tube via the Tuber class. An example set-up is as follows:

tuber = ASeriesOfTubes::Tubes::Tuber.new

tuber.draw do
  get  Regexp.new('^/$'),         CatsController, :index
  get  Regexp.new('^/cats$'),     CatsController, :index
  get  Regexp.new('^/cats/new$'), CatsController, :new
  post Regexp.new('^/cats$'),     CatsController, :create
end

The Tuber itself is mainly useful as a means for creating the various instances of Tube using its draw function. Within draw you create a Tube with the following syntax:

  METHOD REGEX_FOR_PATH, TUBE_CONTROLLER_NAME, TUBE_CONTROLLER_ACTIONS

  # METHOD can be get, post, put, or delete

The TubeController is the class that will actually render your HTML/ERB views. For example, in our sample server, the CatsController#index action looks like this:

class CatsController < ASeriesOfTubes::TubeController
  def index
    @cats = get_cats_from_cookies
  end

  def get_cats_from_cookies
    session['cats'] ? session['cats'] : []
  end
end

When a Tube gets matched to the index action, an instance variable @cats is created and is populated with any data in the session cookie under the key cats. This is another important feature of the TubeController! You can user session[KEY] to store data to the session cookies of the site. Similarly, there is flash[KEY] and flash.now[KEY], which can be used to only store information for the next render or redirect.

This module contains an ORM for working with SQL Databases. Take a look at the sample server to see it in action!

This module just contains helper functions for the entire gem.

This module contains the internal workings of the session and flash abilities of the TubeController class.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/danmakenoise/a_series_of_tubes. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.