Merb Tips 1

* this content is now outdated and only applied to Merb 0.9*

I’m working on a post reporting a recent benchmark I did comparing Rails vs Merb performances for a client’s app.

In the meantime, here are few tricks you might need when using Merb 0.9x

1. In the init.rb file, uncomment and rename _c[:session_idkey] (in the Merb::Config.use block)

2. In the same block, add _c[:loglevel] = :debug to set a log level

3. By default, Merb logs to STDOUT, to log to a file, in the config block add _c[:log_file] = Merb.logpath + ‘/development.log’ (note that you need to create the file yourself, Merb won’t do that)

4. to save your gems locally, do: _sudo gem install gemname -i gems

5. need basic HTTP auth? it’s now available in core

6. don’t forget to require any plugins, extra gems you need (such as _merbhelpers or merb-assets)

7. don’t forget to select your ORM before using the generator( so your generated goodies will be adapted to your ORM)

8. routes are easy to use. In the console (merb -i) type _merb.showroutes to see all your named routes

9. if you want to use link_to, install merb_assets

10. nested routes example:

    1 2 3 4 5 6

    r.resources :channels do |channels| channels.resources :shows do |shows| shows.resources :episodes end end

usage:

1<tt>
</tt>2<tt>
</tt>3<tt>
</tt>4<tt>
</tt>




<tt>
</tt>  url(<span class="sy">:channel_shows</span>, <span class="sy">:channel_id</span> => channel)<tt>
</tt><tt>
</tt>  link_to h(channel.description), url(<span class="sy">:channel</span>, <span class="sy">:id</span> => channel)<tt>
</tt>

That’s it for today :)

In the meantime, check this Merb presentation by Ezra and this DataMapper presentation by Wycats