InVisible Blog

Ruby On Rails Reference

May 1st, 2006

Tomorrow marks the start of my third Ruby On Rails course. It’s going to be a 3 day course with a (somewhat lengthy) introduction to Ruby (and some of the joys of programming in a very dynamic language) with the rest of the time devoted to Rails. I firmly believe in hands-on training, so the amount of lecturing is minimal. And there are only 5 or 6 participants in the class. They will build an application from scratch – either something from their domain (or if they don’t have any idea) an application that I have thought out.

The course materials consist of the two books “Programming Ruby” and “Agile Web Development with Rails”. In addition, I created a 20+ page summary of the most used Rails commands, functions, classes. It’s based partly on the book and mostly on the source code and it’s documentation. Consider it a giant “cheat sheet” for rails.

I release it under a [Creative Commons][1] license.

There’s the PDF version [rails-reference-1.1.pdf][2] (480 kb) and the [HTML version][5] and you can check out the source code (it’s all written in plain text [Markdown][3]) in the [Subversion repository][4]. The [Changelog][7] will tell you what has changed.

Comments, feedback, corrections are welcome! Oh – and if you like it, feel free to [Digg it][6]

The guide will always be free, but if you’d like, you can buy me a beer by pressing the nice PayPal Donation button here:

[1]: http://creativecommons.org
[2]: http://blog.invisible.ch/files/rails-reference-1.1.pdf
[3]: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
[4]: http://invisible.ch/projects/browser/rails-seminar/doc
[5]: http://blog.invisible.ch/files/rails-reference-1.1.html
[6]: http://digg.com/programming/ruby_on_rails_reference_cheatsheet
[7]: http://blog.invisible.ch/files/changelog.html

Technorati Tags: creativecommons, markdown, rubyonrails, training

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized

97 Comments Add your own

1. smerickson | May 2nd, 2006 at 22:26

this is great! Thanks so much!
2. ctran | May 4th, 2006 at 23:03

Absolutely great! Thanks for sharing.
3. Ben Reubenstein | May 4th, 2006 at 23:51

Excellent resource. Would have been very helpful before I got familiar with Rails. The only thing I see missing is information on ActionMailer, which would be pretty short section.
4. Mo’ Rails at 72mach&hellip | May 5th, 2006 at 03:23

[...] Rails 1.1.2 Reference (AWESOME) [...]
5. Marston Online » Bl&hellip | May 5th, 2006 at 07:51

[...] I found this excellent resource over at InVisible blog, its a Ruby on Rails 1.1 24 page “Short” reference guide. It’s collection of the most used calls, methods, functions across a wide range of Rails functionality. [...]
6. Yah, I Saw That Already &&hellip | May 5th, 2006 at 08:00

[...] I found this excellent resource over at InVisible blog, its a Ruby on Rails 1.1 24 page “Short” reference guide. It’s collection of the most used calls, methods, functions across a wide range of Rails functionality. [...]
7. Alex | May 5th, 2006 at 09:47

Amazing! Keep up the good work.
8. Frederic de Villamil .com&hellip | May 5th, 2006 at 10:07

[...] The Invisible blog a concentrÃ© le meilleur du livre Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails dans un PDF de 24 pages trÃ¨s bien fait sous licence Creative Commons. Il reprend ainsi les commandes, classes et fonctions les plus utilisÃ©es avec cet excellent framework. [...]
9. Ruby Pointers at code arr&hellip | May 5th, 2006 at 13:12

[...] Ruby on Rails cheat sheet. Filed under: php | [...]
10. Ezra Zygmuntowicz | May 5th, 2006 at 17:31

THis is really great Jens. I am going to hand this out at the http://workshopforgood.org in a few weeks. Just a heads up, the html version has broken image links for all the images.
11. Thomas Lockney | May 5th, 2006 at 19:03

You might consider adding some of the options to the rails command. In particular, the –database option is very handy and a nice timesaver. It may not be common, but it probably should be. ;~)
12. Jens-Christian Fischer | May 5th, 2006 at 21:45

@Ezra: Thanks for the heads up – I’ll fix that tomorrow – had a busy day at the hospital today :-(

@Thomas: There are options for the rails command? Someone should document that…

@all: Thanks for the kind words
13. CrÃ³nica de una vida &r&hellip | May 5th, 2006 at 23:24

[...] La más interesante es la aparición de un nuevo resumen sobre RoR 1.1 realizado por Invisible Blog. Este resumen consiste en un documento PDF que contiene 24 páginas en donde hace un interesante chuletario de los diferentes aspectos claves de RoR. Sin duda es lo mejor que he encontrado. También se puede consultar la versión HTML. [Vía] [...]
14. Thomas Lockney | May 5th, 2006 at 23:25

yes, there are options for the rails command. I first saw reference to it in terms of using the –database option. Unfortunately, –help doesn’t work to get a list of them. The only way I know for sure to see them is to type –database=foo or some other non-existent database type. So, not only are they not documented (that I’ve seen), they’re hard to find in the first place.
15. Thomas Lockney | May 5th, 2006 at 23:39

I should have mentioned, the –database option allows you to define one of sqlite, mysql or postgresql and will generate a database.yml to suit (without all the extra fluff).

Also, thanks for the wonderful reference. It’s very handy.
16. Pedro MarÃn Ramos | May 6th, 2006 at 18:00

I would like to translate the document to the Spanish.
Can you send it to me by email in editable format?
17. Administrator | May 6th, 2006 at 21:30

Pedro, please check the subversion reposiory for the source code (http://invisible.ch/projects/browser/rails-seminar/doc)
18. pablo flores | May 7th, 2006 at 01:41

Thank you for the work. This is very useful
19. Pedro Visintin | May 8th, 2006 at 02:44

Excellent, is a must have. I will put a trackback here in my blog. And the wiki

http://blogs.onrails.com.ar/articles/trackback/30
http://wiki.onrails.com.ar/onrailscomarwiki/show/RecursosEnIngles

If need translation to spanish I could help.

P
20. Edu | May 9th, 2006 at 15:57

Hi, we have a started to coordinate to translate this to Spanish.

See the thread at the ror-es mailing list:

http://lists.simplelogica.net/pipermail/ror-es/2006-May/thread.html#1853

Jump in!
21. Administrator | May 9th, 2006 at 16:22

I can reorganize the subversion repository and give you guys access to it, so that you can put the spanish translation there. Then I could set it up so that the PDF & HTML files are generated upon check in.

Interested?
22. charlie bowman | May 10th, 2006 at 02:48

Great Job! I know I and many others will find the reference very usefull
23. Jeroen van Doorn » &hellip | May 10th, 2006 at 07:20

[...] Found out this morning about a Ruby on Rails cheatsheet which I didn’t notice before. It’s more like a reference because of its size, but I agree with Charlie Bowman from Recent Rambles that it’s the best available at this time. [...]
24. G_u_s » Referencia &hellip | May 10th, 2006 at 13:51

[...] May 10th 2006 Referencia para Rails esto es [ Computadoras, programaciÃ³n y demÃ¡s ] Alguien ha publicado un “machete” paradesarrollar en Rails: Rails Reference (vÃa Argentina On Rails) [...]
25. G_u_s » Referencia &hellip | May 10th, 2006 at 13:53

[...] May 10th 2006 Referencia para Rails esto es [ Algo para el dÃa ] Alguien ha publicado un “machete” para desarrollar enRails: Rails Reference (vÃa Argentina On Rails) [...]
26. Rails Referenz at Ruby Bl&hellip | May 12th, 2006 at 10:28

[...] Rails Referenz Published by andreas Mai 12th, 2006 in Aktuelles Tags: creative commons, rails, referenz. Tags: creative commons, rails, referenzDie InVisible GmbH bietet Ã¼ber Ihren Blog eine wirklich gute und prÃ¤gnante Rails-Referenz als Onlineversion und auch zum Download (Pdf) an. Das Dokument wurde unter der Creative Commons Lizenz verÃ¶ffentlicht und hat momentan einen Umfang von rund 20 Seiten. Das ganze wird Ã¼ber ein Subversion Repository gepflegt. [...]
27. Steven Rogers | May 15th, 2006 at 02:57

The arrows in the HABTM example on page 6 are backwards. They should point out from categories_products. See the example here on the RoR site. Othewise, super little reference.
28. Blaine | May 15th, 2006 at 15:07

This is awesome! I like it even better than my cheatsheet….
http://www.blainekendall.com/index.php/rubyonrailscheatsheet/
29. florian | May 16th, 2006 at 15:27

great! no more need to dig for all the stuff you always need as a once-a-week-after-work coder.
30. mercy | May 18th, 2006 at 21:59

Great, and big thanks!
These paper contains everything you need to keep up the daily coding. Nothing less, nothing more.
31. PrÐ¾Ð´ÑƒÐºÑ‚Ð&hellip | May 20th, 2006 at 06:47

[...] HTML Ð¸ PDF (457 KB) Ð²ÐµÑ€ÑÐ¸Ñ. ÐÑƒ Ð¸ Ð°Ð½Ð¾Ð½Ñ Ð½Ð° Ð±Ð»Ð¾Ð³Ðµ Ð°Ð²Ñ‚Ð¾Ñ€Ð°. [...]
32. Michael @ SEOG | May 25th, 2006 at 21:51

Right on! Thanks for the Rails guide.

The HTML version font could be a little larger, I had to raise my text size in order to read it easily on my screen. I like seeing all the options in one place, wicked.
33. .net and other musings &r&hellip | May 26th, 2006 at 10:44

[...] While we're on the subject of RoR – I've found this Ruby on Rails Reference to be a great help… [...]
34. DigitalHobbit | May 31st, 2006 at 06:09

This is great! Any chance of a PDF version with syntax highlighting?
35. DigitalHobbit » Blo&hellip | May 31st, 2006 at 06:13

[...] I just found this very nice Ruby on Rails reference. Both a 33-page PDF version and an even nicer HTML version with colors and syntax highlighting are available. [...]
36. Mark | June 1st, 2006 at 07:14

Wow!! This is excellent. Being new to RoR, this is already helping me so much.

Thanks.
37. Vidal | June 1st, 2006 at 18:14

This is outstanding. Very helpful. Thanks!
38. Yet Another Rails Newbie &hellip | June 5th, 2006 at 00:07

[...] Rails is great but the documentation is currently less so. There are some good books around, but nothing until now that’s provided a short reference to the stuff a new Rails developer will use the most in that phase between total newbie and reasonably competent. Thankfully, I’ve now found out about the Ruby on Rails Short Reference, a 24 page PDF which seems to provide most of the stuff I haven’t quite memorised the syntax for yet. [...]
39. Agile Web Development &ra&hellip | June 9th, 2006 at 15:23

[...] http://blog.invisible.ch/2006/05/01/ruby-on-rails-reference/ [...]
40. Blogaholic: Getting thing&hellip | June 10th, 2006 at 11:32

[...] Die immer wieder benÃ¶tigten Handgriffe in Ruby in Rails Anwendungen gibt es jetzt zusammengefasst in einer kompakten Referenz: InVisible Blog Â» Ruby On Rails Reference [...]
41. Free Software Blog »&hellip | June 11th, 2006 at 08:43

[...] I found this nice Rails Reference from Agile web Development blog. There is also a HTML version and a PDF version. It is a good CheatSheet about 34 pages in the PDF. I think I gotta print it out. Filed under: Tips and Tricks, Programming — Srinivasan R | [...]
42. Michael Luu | June 27th, 2006 at 07:11

awesome document your compiling. I would suggesting adding a section on “Magic Column Names” as stated in “Agile Web Development with Rails”. i.e. ‘special rails sauce’ stuff that happens when you create columns called ‘createdon’ and ‘lockversion’

keep up the great work! The more docs on Rails the better!
43. Michael | June 29th, 2006 at 06:22

Hey! I really appreciate the reference, though I did notice it does apper to be missing reference on functional testing…
44. Erde | July 20th, 2006 at 13:53

Really great, thanks for this Reference.
45. PÃ¥l | July 21st, 2006 at 10:44

Thanks. This is what I’ve been looking for â€“Â as a newbie.
46. Andrew Skegg | July 25th, 2006 at 03:40

This is excellent! Thanks very much :)
47. Tottigol | July 25th, 2006 at 13:14

Wow, amazing. Thx a lot!
48. JIm Smiley | August 26th, 2006 at 04:06

How do you get the browser to find a first page(index.html) that will link to the rails web pages (rhtml)
49. PuneRuby - Ruby Rails Gui&hellip | August 27th, 2006 at 17:07

[...] Then I have written a “small” Rails reference, that was a tremendous success and do Ruby and Rails Training in Switzerland. End of September we (re)start the SwissRUG (the swiss Ruby Users Group). I doubt that we will reach 275 members any time soon though [...]
50. Kelli | September 2nd, 2006 at 18:10

This is one of the best beginner Rails reference docs I’ve seen. It’s been very helpful to me as I learn. Thanks.
51. Nathaniel Brown | September 7th, 2006 at 22:33

This is an excellent convergent doc on all the core Rails elements. Your invested time is much appreciated!
52. SyntheticRabbit: Blog >&hellip | September 10th, 2006 at 09:02

[...] I thought Rails might handle this automatically, but alas, it does not. I found the answer in Invisible Blog’s RoR Reference (page 5). [...]
53. Ruby on Rails references &hellip | September 24th, 2006 at 20:42

[...] Un tout petit billet pour signaler Ã tous le dÃ©veloppeurs Ruby on Rails que le blog d’Invisible a publiÃ© une page de rÃ©fÃ©rences pour RoR trÃ¨s bien faite et trÃ¨s complÃ¨te ! [...]
54. Volker | October 3rd, 2006 at 13:59

A great and helpful tool. Thanks!
55. Awsome Rails Reference PD&hellip | October 5th, 2006 at 15:24

[...] I found this pdf over at the InVisible Blog. This is a great shortcut reference to commonly used things when programming in Ruby on Rails. I’m not sure how I lived without this for so long. There is a HTML version here or download the original pdf here. [...]
56. Cristiano Dias | October 11th, 2006 at 20:16

I can’t live without it. Thanks a lot.
57. at This One Might Be Usef&hellip | October 18th, 2006 at 18:42

[...] Ruby On Rails Reference [...]
58. A Handful of Links at Thi&hellip | October 18th, 2006 at 19:24

[...] Rails Ruby on Rails Reference: terribly useful Ruby on Rails Manual: searchable! separated by version! [...]
59. CableGuy | October 24th, 2006 at 12:06

Great! Ruby on Rails Reference is all we need…. :)
60. Pozycjonowanie | October 27th, 2006 at 12:42

This is one of the best beginner Rails reference docs Iâ€™ve seen. Itâ€™s been very helpful to me as I learn. Thanks. Greetings
61. Robert | November 10th, 2006 at 21:45

Great idea and a famous job.
Thx!
62. SmickSmack / Some Cool/In&hellip | November 17th, 2006 at 01:45

[...] RoR Short Reference (24 page pdf) [...]
63. jh | November 20th, 2006 at 19:56

Tnks! This is what Iâ€™ve been looking for, also as a short reference.

PS: it seems you need an anty-spam solution
64. Ruby on Rails resources |&hellip | November 23rd, 2006 at 04:10

[...] Ruby on Rails Reference – A 20+ page summary of the most used commands, functions, and classes. Available in pdf and html format. [...]
65. magazzino emmezeta | November 27th, 2006 at 12:45

This is one of the best beginner Rails reference docs Iâ€™ve seen. Itâ€™s been very helpful to me as I learn. Thanks. Greetings
66. neoline | November 30th, 2006 at 11:26

Thats great that you shared this reference. Thank you very much
67. sam | December 2nd, 2006 at 04:15

hey,
thanks a ton–i’m diving into programming cold because i have a specific web site i want to design, and i need all the help i can get.

thanks a lot!
68. Brautmode | January 7th, 2007 at 17:02

I found this page on google because I`m looking for solution for a Rails problem. And I think I found it in your sheet. I will check it out now, but thanks at this time for your support.
69. Tanie linie lotnicze | January 19th, 2007 at 13:29

Thats great that you shared this reference.
Fantastic article covering some points I really needed some good usability info for.
Best regards from Poland
Tanie linie lotnicze
70. Ari | January 24th, 2007 at 12:48

Great reference, thanks!

Have you thought about updating the reference to Rails 1.2?
71. Administrator | January 24th, 2007 at 15:20

Yes – that’s planned… It will take some time, because I have quite a few things moving right now
72. ant21 | January 25th, 2007 at 03:57

Fantastic! Really thanks for your hard work. Google takes me here looking for solutions. It’s a very useful reference.
73. Vasudev Ram | February 7th, 2007 at 08:44

A very useful reference.
Thanks a lot!

Vasudev Ram
http://www.dancingbison.com
74. Ivan | February 25th, 2007 at 22:54

Wow. Thatâ€™s great! Thanks for the nice article.
Centro Software Libre
75. ruby on rails reference c&hellip | March 7th, 2007 at 21:01

[...] March 7th, 2007 This website has an excelent Ruby on Rails resource for those in need (like most of us). It features lot’s of command line options, code snippets, and stuff like that. Very handfull! This is the link to the blog entry, and this one points to the text itself. Take a look! Posted by dante regis Filed in Uncategorized [...]
76. otilie | March 23rd, 2007 at 17:40

Interesting site. Thanks for the useful informations. Keep up the good work.
77. kontakt | April 12th, 2007 at 19:25

thanks for the reference (pdf)!
78. grty | May 8th, 2007 at 21:43

This is one of the best beginner Rails reference docs Iâ€™ve seen. Itâ€™s been very helpful to me as I learn. Thanks. Greetings
79. NinjaHideout » Blog&hellip | May 16th, 2007 at 10:02

[...] LONG notes sheet, well worth reading (lots of detail). [...]
80. domy drewniane | June 13th, 2007 at 13:26

Interesting site. Thanks for the useful informations.
81. Dmitry | June 16th, 2007 at 10:31

Hi,

Weill be such reference for rails 1.2 available ?

Thanks.

Regards.
82. Rainer | July 17th, 2007 at 15:43

That’s a very nice move – to publish your ROR course for free. Next week I will start my first Rails project, and I am pleased at your tips.
83. Andy | August 14th, 2007 at 04:47

great reference. handy to have a pdf to search locally too!
thanks
84. RailsNuby | September 3rd, 2007 at 12:07

@71 – This really is a great reference. Is a 1.2 version still in the works? If so, do you have a timeline? If not, will you re-release the source so that others can update it? (I couldn’t access the subversion version via the published link – http://invisible.ch/projects/browser/rails-seminar/doc ).
85. Administrator | September 4th, 2007 at 16:44

Yes it still is in the works and will hopefully surface RSN…

I’ll look into the SVN problem…
86. Nic | September 29th, 2007 at 07:14

Thanks a bunch for the PDF as im learning Ruby at the moment it has proven very useful.
87. WIllem de Ru | October 2nd, 2007 at 10:35

Thanks, this is an excellent help! And I am also looking forward to the 1.2 version. Thanks!
88. Mario Wunder | October 23rd, 2007 at 20:16

hi, thanks for the many information – Currently I am busy in studying ROR…. I love it.
89. rafaelleite.com.br »&hellip | November 3rd, 2007 at 05:08

[...] ReferÃªncia sobre RoR, apanhado interessante de informaÃ§Ãµes. [...]
90. Muhammed | December 26th, 2007 at 09:56

Short n sweet reference, thanks for sharing…
91. Dan | January 23rd, 2008 at 19:49

Thanks for this reference!

Any chance of a Rails 2.0 version soon?

-Dan
92. kane77 | February 7th, 2008 at 20:45

Thanx.. this is great reference!

will there be updated version, as quite a few things have changed in 2.0 rails..
93. fabiolagana.net » I&hellip | March 20th, 2008 at 10:22

[...] This reference guide is Â© 2006 by InVisible GmbH (http://www.invisible.ch) and released under a Creative Commons license (see end for details). More information and a PDF version of this document can be found at http://blog.invisible.ch/2006/05/01/ruby-on-rails-reference/. Do you find this reference useful? It will always be free, but if you like to buy me a beer, consider using the handy Donation button to do so [...]
94. 60 Ruby on Rails Tutorial&hellip | April 20th, 2008 at 10:59

[...] 46.Ruby on Rails Cheat Sheet (Invisible Blog) [...]
95. 60 Ruby on Rails Tutorial&hellip | April 20th, 2008 at 10:59

[...] 46.Ruby on Rails Cheat Sheet (Invisible Blog) [...]
96. mr49 | June 11th, 2009 at 08:13

hi,
im new in learning ROR,,,,,, n find this blog very informatic….
but since last two days when i try to open this blog, i got the message HTTP 404 Not Found….
plz solve this problem…

thnx in advancd

Regards,
mr49
97. FA | July 28th, 2009 at 23:15

Thanks for this cheat sheet, This is really helpful to me to get started with ROR.

I am trying to download rails-reference-1.1.pdf but this PDF link is giving me “Error 404 – File not Found” error. Link I am using is:
Link http://blog.invisible.ch/files/rails-reference-1.1.pdf

Can I download this file from anywhere?

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