JavaScript: How to query the state of a Promise
Native promises have no methods to inspect their state.
You can use the promiseState function below to check whether a promise is fulfilled, rejected or still pending:
promiseState(promise, function(state) {
// `state` now either "pending", "fulfilled" or "rejected"
});
Note that the callback passed to promiseState will be called asynchronously in the next [microtask](https://jakearchibald.com/2015/tasks-microtasks-queues-and-schedules/...
How to use a local gem in your Gemfile
You can use local copies of gems in your Gemfile like this:
gem 'spreewald', path: '~/gems/spreewald'
As soon as you have bundled your project with the local copy of the gem, all code changes in the copy will be available on your project. So you can for example set a debugger or add console output in the gem and use it from your project.
If you checked out the gem with your versioning tool, you can easily reset your changes afterwards or make a pull request for the gem if you improved it.
Don't commit a Gemfile with local path...
IRB: last return value
In the ruby shell (IRB) and rails console the return value of the previous command is saved in _ (underscore). This might come in handy if you forgot to save the value to a variable and further want to use it.
Example:
irb(main):001:0> 1 + 2
=> 3
irb(main):002:0> _
=> 3
irb(main):003:0> a = _
=> 3
RSpec's hash_including matcher does not support nesting
You can not use the hash_including argument matcher with a nested hash:
describe 'user' do
let(:user) { {id: 1, name: 'Foo', thread: {id: 1, title: 'Bar'} }
it do
expect(user).to match(
hash_including(
id: 1, thread: {id: 1}
)
)
end
end
The example will fail and returns a not very helpful error message:
expected {:id => 1, :name => "Foo", :thread => {:id => 1, :title => "Bar"}} to...
Selenium cannot obtain stable Firefox connection
When using geordi for integration tests you might get the following error when trying to run geordi cucumber:
unable to obtain stable firefox connection in 60 seconds (127.0.0.1:7055) (Selenium::WebDriver::Error::WebDriverError)
This means, that the vnc window the tests is talking to has no proper firefox version running. To figure out the issue this might help you:
- Check if the
.firefox-version(e.g.24.0) is the same as~/bin/firefoxes/24.0/firefoxsays in the browser - Maybe [rest...
Ubuntu: Share internet connections with other computers
You can configure a Ubuntu system as a gateway in order to share it's internet connection (maybe via WLAN or tethering) with other computers on the network.
On the gateway
- Enable ip traffic forwarding:
-
Open
/etc/sysctl.conf -
Uncomment the line
net.ipv4.ip_forward=1 -
Reload using
sudo sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.conf
-
- Reconfigure ip_tables to allow NAT:
- Download the attached file
- Replace
online_devicewith the name of the network device that provides the internet connection
...
Capistrano: Doing things on rollback
Capistrano has the concept of a "rollback" that comes in really handy in case of errors. When you notice that your recent deploy was faulty, run cap deploy:rollback and you're back with the previous release. In case of an error during a deployment, Capistrano will rollback itself.
But, you may ask, how can it know how to revert all the custom stuff I'm doing during deployment? It can't. But you can tell it how to.
Capistrano 3
Deploy and rollback are nearly identi...
How to make Webpacker compile once for parallel tests, and only if necessary
Webpack is the future. We're using it in our latest Rails applications.
For tests, we want to compile assets like for production.
For parallel tests, we want to avoid 8 workers compiling the same files at the same time.
When assets did not change, we do not want to spend time compiling them.
Here is our solution for all that.
Its concept should work for all test suites.
Copy the following to config/initializers/webpacker_compile_once.rb. It will patch Webpacker, but only for the test environment:
# Avoid hardcoded asset host...
Cucumber: Test that an element is not overshadowed by another element
I needed to make sure that an element is visible and not overshadowed by an element that has a higher z-index (like a modal overlay).
Here is the step I wanted:
Then the very important notice should not be overshadowed by another element
This is the step definition:
Then(/^(.*?) should not be overshadowed by another element$/) do |locator|
selector = selector_for(locator)
expect(page).to have_css(selector)
js = <<-JS
var selector = #{selector.to_json};
var elementFromSelector = document.querySelector(selector)...
Ruby: define a class with Struct.new
This card will show you a cool way to define a class using Struct.new.
A common usecase for Structs are temporary data structures which just hold state and don't provide behaviour. In many cases you could use a simple hash as a data structure instead. However, a Struct provides you with a nice constructor, attribute accessors and complains if you try to access undefined attributes. Structs are easy to compare (by attributes). A struct gives meaning to the data.
Disclaimer
Structs are great...
How to: Rails cache for individual rspec tests
Rails default config uses the ActiveSupport::Cache::NullStore and disables controller caching for all environments except production:
config.action_controller.perform_caching = false
config.cache_store = :null_store
If you want to test caching you have at least two possibilities:
- Enable caching for every test (not covered by this card and straightforward)
- Enable caching for individual test
Enable caching for individual test (file cache)
1. Leave the defau...
Shoulda Matchers: how to test conditional validations
Shoulda Matchers don't provide canditional validations (validations with if: option). Here is how to write tests for the condition:
Class:
class Employee < ActiveRecored::Base
validates :office, presence: true, if: manager?
def manager?
...
end
end
Test:
describe Employee do
describe '#office' do
context 'is a manager' do
before { allow(subject).to receive(:manager?).and_return(true) }
it { is_expected.to validate_presence_o...
MySQL 5.7.5 enables `ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY` mode per default
When using GROUP BY, MySQL now complains if the SELECT includes columns which are not part of the GROUP BY.
Reason:
There could be multiple values for those columns per group but only one value can be picked for the results.
The default behaviour of MySQL prior to version 5.7 will not complain and arbitrarily choose a value. But this leads to non-deterministic results. So MySQL now has enabled the only_full_group_by setting by default to prevent this.
In Rails this could lead to some trouble, because scopes do not have sp...
Rails: How to write custom email interceptors
Nowadays it is fairly easy to intercept and modify mails globally before they are sent. All you have to do is register an interceptor class which responds to .delivering_email(message). This card will show you two common use cases.
Subject prefix:
Usually you want to prefix the subject line of emails with the current environment (except production) so you can differentiate between production mails and mails from other environments. Of course a...
Capistrano 2: How to deploy a single server
When you have a multi-server setup, you'll be adding a new server from time to time. Before doing a full deploy, you might want to test that server in an isolated deploy. There is a single way to do this: the HOSTFILTER env variable.
Commenting out "server" lines in the Capistrano deploy config will raise a Capistrano::NoMatchingServersError with <task> is only run for servers matching {:roles=> <role>}, but no servers matched. Instead, specify the server-under-test like this:
HOSTFILTER=separate-sidekiq.makandra.de cap productio...
Working with or without time zones in Rails applications
Rails supports time zones, but there are several pitfalls. Most importantly because Time.now and Time.current are completely different things and code from gems might use one or the other.
Especially configuring an application that cares only about one time zone is a bit tricky.
The following was tested on Rails 5.1 but should apply to Rails 4.2 as well.
Using only local time
Your life will be easier if your application does not need to support time zones. Disable them like this:
config.time_zone = 'Berlin' # Your local ...
How to define height of a div as percentage of its variable width
This is useful if, for example, you want to use a background-image that has to scale with the width and the div should only have the height of the picture.
html:
<div class="outer">
<div class="inner">
</div>
</div>
css:
.outer {
width: 100%;
background-image: image-url('background.png');
background-size: cover;
}
.inner {
padding-top: 60%;
}
How does it work?
There are several CSS attributes that can handle values as percentage. But they use different other attributes as "reference value...
Git: Rebasing dependent feature branches
This card will show you how to use git rebase --onto without confusion.
Use case:
You've got two feature branches (one and two), where two depends on one. Now commits of branch one have changed after you branched two from it (i.e. after code review the commits of branch one are squashed). Thus the commit history of branch one has changed. Branch two's history however didn't change.
Solution:
To make the branches share the same commit history again you will have to rebase and replay (attach) the a...
Webmock's hash_including doesn't parse query values to string
Webmocks hash_including is similar to RSpec::Mocks::ArgumentMatchers#hash_including. Be aware that hash_including (webmock v3.0.1) doesn't parse integer values to String.
Without hash including you would say:
uri = URI('http://example.com/?foo=1&bar=2')
stub_request(:get, 'example.com').with(query: {foo: 1, bar: 2})
Net::HTTP.get(uri) # ===> Success
If you only want to check if foo is present you can use hash_including:
uri = URI('http://example.com/?foo=1&bar=2')
stub_request(:get, 'example.com').with(query: hash_i...
Webmock normalizes arrays in urls
Typhoeus has a different way of representing array params in a get request than RestClient.
Typhoeus: http://example.com/?foo[0]=1&foo[1]=2&foo[2]=3
RestClient: http://example.com/?foo[]=1&foo[]=2&foo[]=3
Webmock normalizes this url when matching to your stubs, so it is always http://example.com/?foo[]=1&foo[]=2&foo[]=3. This might lead to green tests, but in fact crashes in real world. Rack::Utils.build_nested_query might help to build a get re...
Middleman configuration for Rails Developers
Middleman is a static page generator that brings many of the goodies that Rails developers are used to.
Out of the box, Middleman brings Haml, Sass, helpers etc. However, it can be configured to do even better. This card is a list of improvement hints for a Rails developer.
Gemfile
Remove tzinfo-data and wdm unless you're on Windows. Add these gems:
gem 'middleman-livereload'
gem 'middleman-sprockets' # Asset pipeline!
gem 'bootstrap-sass' # If you want to use Bootstrap
gem 'byebug'
gem 'capistrano'
gem 'capistrano-mid...
Capistrano 3: How to deploy when a firewall blocks your git repo
Sometimes, through some firewall or proxy misconfiguration, you might have to deploy to a server that cannot access the git repository.
Solution 1: HTTP Proxy (this is the preferred fix)
SSH can be tunneled over an HTTP Proxy. For example, when the repo is on github, use this:
-
Install
socat -
Add a
~/.ssh/configon the target server(s) with permission 0600 and this content:Host github.com ssh.github.com User git Hostname ssh.github.com Port 443 ProxyCommand socat - PROXY:<your proxyhost>:%h:%p,...
Quickly printing data in columns on your Ruby console
Dump this method into your Ruby console to quickly print data in columns. This is helpful for e.g. comparing attributes of a set of Rails records.
def tp(objects, *method_names)
terminal_width = `tput cols`.to_i
cols = objects.count + 1 # Label column
col_width = (terminal_width / cols) - 1 # Column spacing
Array(method_names).map do |method_name|
cells = objects.map{ |o| o.send(method_name).inspect }
cells.unshift(method_name)
puts cells.map{ |cell| cell.to_s.ljust(col_width) }.join ' '
end
nil
end
Usag...
Style Guide for Git commit messages
- Separate subject from body with a blank line
- Limit the subject line to 50 characters (max. 72), include reference (unique story ID) to requirements tracker (Linear in our case)
- Capitalize the subject line
- Do not end the subject line with a period
- Use the imperative mood in the subject line
- Wrap the body at 72 characters
- Use the body to explain what and why vs. how.
Tip
As an alternative, use a commit message that refers to a GitHub issue (
fixes #321) or [story ID](https://makandracards.com/makandra/620718-b...