I'm new to Yii and am taking over maintenance of a fairly completed project. In all the books and web resources it only talks about adding new models/controllers etc using the Gii tool. I have looked in the config/main.php file of this project and the Gii module has been removed and also there is no index.php page for me to simply re-add it to. The project is live on a server already.
How do I add a new model to the site? I have tried duplicating an existing model and creating a new database table but I can't seem to access it from anywhere within the app. Would I also have to edit a file in the framework somewhere to add a new reference to this model?
Or do I have to create a local development environment replica of the site and use gii there, then add the new files (presumably not just the model file otherwise what's the difference?) to the server.
Gii model generator just create file in Model folder, so you just need to duplicate one of them and change all references.
If you create some different from other models class in that folder it will work, because of autoloader.
Probably you just forgot to change some info. Check file name. It need to be EXACT same as class name. For example if your model class name is Users your file need to be Users.php
It sounds like you are trying to modify production code in your live production environment. What happens when you do something to break the site? How long can that site afford to be off-line, or have things not working quite right? It is my experience that new development should be done in a development environment and then promoted to production. Otherwise you are forced to test your changes in your live production environment, and that is a dangerous thing indeed.
Given that you are new to Yii, odds are that you aren't going to be able to write code that is bug free the first time.
Best thing to do is create a development environment to mirror production, and install Gii there. Then you can create all the models and controllers you want with Gii, test your changes, and finally promote your changes to the production environment. This is really a best practice issue. You don't want to be changing your live code with untested code.
Related
I need some best-practice advice for how best to go-live with a new PrestaShop store.
The background: we have been working on a new store, with new core (PrestaShop version) and new design (updated theme).
Next: very soon, we need to put this store live, but we already have a live (and active) PrestaShop store.
So, what is the best approach to get this new store live?
Of concern are the changes to the current live version whilst the new one has been developed - content, orders, accounts etc which need to persist.
FYI we have full server access with cPanel, SSH etc.
Many thanks!
Set the current live site in Maintenance for a few hours at a time when you have less visitors: use a module like [MigrationPro][1]
[1]: https://addons.prestashop.com/en/data-migration-backup/8934-migrationpro-prestashop-upgrade-and-migrate-tool.html or look for some free scripts on Prestashop forum->Free modules section (although I recommend the module above; not affiliated with them just used it several times).
Migrate the data, check if everything alright and if it is, just move elsewhere (as a backup) the files in the web directory and move there the new shop files (set the new shop on maintenance too).
Clear all caches, test it the set it online.
My opinion is:
Putting the main site in maintenance mode
Moving the main site to a new test address
Upgrading the test site in the new address to the desired version of Prestashop
Getting output from the desired template (your custom theme) and importing it on the test site
If there is no problem, you can move the test site to the main site (files and databases) or do the same thing again on the main site.
You need to start a process and create documentation.
Create a copy of the live shop folders and database to a new address like /test.
Upgrade your test shop to the new version 1.7.6.5.
Start moving your theme and modules from your new store to the upgraded test shop.
Create documentation of every change. like moving files, moving modules DB tables, and more.
Create a backup of your current live shop.
Repeat 1-3 steps and follow your documentation in your live shop.
I think you can move everything in a few hours if you have a step by step guide.
I'm trying to understand the different types of migration paths we can choose when developing an ASP.NET Core 1.0 application with EF Core. When I created my first Core application I noticed it generated a ApplicationDbContextModelSnapshot class that uses a ModelBuilder to build the model.
Then I read that if I need to add a table to the database, I need to create the new model and run the command line to generate the migration file and update the database. Ok, I get it up to this point.
But when I do that, I notice that the ApplicationDbContextModelSnapshot class gets updated too.
1) Does that mean I cannot modify this ApplicationDbContextModelSnapshot class since it looks like it gets regenerated each time?
2) Should I use Data Annotations to build my model or should I use Fluent API which tells me to build my model in the ApplicationDbContext class? Huh? another file that builds the model?
I'm seeing three different ways of working with the database here, the snapshot class, data annotations, and fluent API. I'm confused because today, I made a mistake in my last migration file so I deleted the file, dropped the database and reran the database update.
But by doing that I got errors similar to:
The index 'IX_Transaction_GiftCardId' is dependent on column 'GiftCardId'.
ALTER TABLE ALTER COLUMN GiftCardId failed because one or more objects access this column.
So naturally I was wondering if I had to modify the ApplicationDbContextModelSnapshot class.
What is the path I should be taking when it comes to migrations or database updates because these three paths are confusing me.
I have run into this issue before when I create migrations, make model changes, create new migrations, and try to update the database. The root cause is when keys are being changed and relationships are not dropped and are not added back or do not exist.
You have two options
Easy Method
The easiest way is also the most destructive way and only possible in a dev environment.
Delete all migrations, drop the database, create new migrations and run 'update-database'.
Hard/Safest Method
This is the most time consuming method. I recommend do this in a local integration branch first, pushing it to a remote integration, and then production.
Open the migration file, ie 20160914173357_MyNewMigration.cs.
Drop all indexes in order
Drop/Add/Edit table schemas
Add all indexes back.
For either method, just be sure to test and test again.
Do not modify ApplicationDbContextModelSnapshot. It is a design-time artifact, and should only be modified in the case of a merge conflict.
To update the model, always use data annotations or the fluent API.
For more information on the EF Migrations workflow, see Code First Migrations. It's for EF6, but most of the information is still relevant.
I have a couple of Composite C1 CMS websites.
To edit them currently I use the web based CMS on the live site.
However - I would like to update the (code & content) in Visual Studio locally - then sync to the web. However, if my local copy is older than that online (e.g. a non techy client has edited something on the live site) and I Web Deploy - it will go over the top of the new file on the server.
I need a solution that works out the newest change? I can't find anything in Google or the C1 docs.
How can I sync - preferably using Web Deploy. Do I need some kind of version control?
Is there a best practice for this - editing the live site through the web interface seems a bit dicey & is slow.
The general answer to this type of scenario seems to be to use the Package Creator. With that you can develop locally, add the files you've changed to a package, and install that package on a live site. This solution does not at all cover all the parts of you question though, and has certain limitations:
You cannot selectively add content to a package. It's all pages or no pages.
Adding datatypes is easy, but updating them later requires you to delete the datatype (and data), and recreate the datatype.
In my experience packages works well for incremental site updates, if you limit the packages content to be front end stuff, like css, images and such.
You say you need a solution that works out the newest changes - I believe the only solution to this is yourself, with the aid of some tooling. I don't think there's a silver bullet solution here.
Should you use a version control system? Yes! By all means. Even if you are not sharing your code with anyone, a VCS is a great way to get to know Composite C1 from a file system perspective, as you can carefully track what files are changed on disk, as you develop. This knowledge is crucial when you want to continuously add features the a website that is already alive and kicking - you need to know what to deploy, and what not to touch.
Make sure you read the docs on how Composite fits in VCS: http://docs.composite.net/Configuration/C1-and-Version-Control
I assume that your sites are using the XML data storage (if you where using SQL Data Store, your content would not be overridden upon sync).
This means that your entire web application lives in one folder on disk on the web server, which can be an advantage here.
I'll try to outline a solution that could work for you, although I must stress that I've never tried this - I'm making it up as I type.
Let's say you're using git, download the site in it's entirety from the production web server, and commit the whole damned thing* to your master branch.
Then you create a new feature branch from that commit, and start making the changes you want to deploy later, and carefully commit your work as you go along, making sure you only commit the changes that are needed for your feature to work, to the feature branch.
Now, you are ready to deploy, and you switch back the master branch, and again download the entire site and commit it to master.
You then merge your feature branch into the master branch, and have git do all the hard work of stitching you changes in with the changes from the live site. There are bound to be merge conflicts, and that is where you will have to jump in, and decide for yourself what content needs to go live.
After this is done and tested, you can web deploy the site up to the production environment.
Changes to the live site might have occurred while you where merging, so consider closing the site, or parts of it, during this process.
If you are using SQL Data Store i suggest paying for a tool like Red Gate's SQL Compare and SQL Data Compare or SQL Delta, to compare your dev database to the production database, and hand pick SQL scripts that can be applied to the production database along with your feature deployment.
'* Do consider using a .gitignore file to avoid committing certain files - refer to the docs for mere info.
I suppose you should use the Package Creator
Also have a look here: http://docs.composite.net/Configuration/C1-and-Version-Control
I am using RavenDb across multiple projects and solutions to access three different databases that are all part of the same product. For instance, I have multiple MVC projects that fetch user info and some data out of the 'web' centric database and the 'backend' database, using '-' for the id override (but I need this only for a subset of classes in the 'web' db). And then I have another 'backend' database that is used by services (as well as the MVC projects). And finally a third temp/scratch database I use by another set of services to build the backend db. And of course, all of these are being accessed from different class libraries and even console test, seed, and integration test apps.
Managing all of these is becoming quite a nuisance. Every time I create a new console app or class library that access the db, I have to setup config and raven packages for each project, make sure indexes are built, etc.... Not to mention running update on all nuget updates, or in my case, installing a new unstable version of the server/client binaries.
Is there an easier way to manage this?
I tried to abstract the DocumentStore creation and initialization, as well as index creation into it own project and reference that. But the other projects then had to manually add newtonsoft.json (and nlog) from the package directory.
As well, I am getting the following when I try and abstract the DocumentStore into a class with a static property:
StackTrace of un-disposed document store recorded. Please make sure to dispose any document store in the tests in order to avoid race conditions in tests.
Anyone have any thoughts on handling these issues?
Thanks
I don't think that the manual addition of the references is a big issue, but you can add the actual nuget references as well.
Note that the DocumentStore not disposed error is something that only happened in the unstable (debug builds), and won't happen on release builds.
I have the following scenario:
I'm starting development of a long project (around 6 months) and I need to have some information on the database in order to test my features. The problem is that right now, I don't have the forms to insert this information (I will in the future) but I need the information loaded on the DB, what's the best way to handle this? Specially considering that once the app is complete, I won't need this process anymore.
As an example, lets say I have tasks that need to be categorized. I've begun working on the tasks, but I need to have some categories loaded on my db already.
I'm working with Rails 3.1 btw.
Thanks in advance!
Edit
About seeds:I've been told that seeds are not the way to go if your data may vary a bit, since you'd have to delete all information and reinsert it again. Say.. I want to change or add categories, then I'd have to edit the seeds.rb file, do my modifications and then delete and reload all data...., is there another way? Or are seeds the defenitely best way to solve this problem?
So it sounds like you'll possibly be adding, changing, or deleting data along the way that will be intermingled amongst other data. So seeds.rb is out. What you need to use are migrations. That way you can search for and identify the data you want to change through a sequential process, which migrations are exactly designed for. Otherwise I think your best bet is to change the data manually through the rails console.
EDIT: A good example would be as follows.
You're using Capistrano to handle your deployment. You want to add a new Category, Toys, to your system. In a migration file then you would add Category.create(:name => "Toys") or something similar in your migration function (I forget what they call it now in Rails 3.1, I know there's only a single method though), run rake db:migrate locally, test your changes, commit them, then if it's acceptable deploy it using cap:deploy and that will run the new migration against your production database, insert the new category, and make it available for use in the deployed application.
That example aside, it really depends on your workflow. If you think that adding new data via migrations won't hose your application, then go for it. I will say that DHH (David Heinemeier Hansson) is not a fan of it, as he uses it strictly for changing the structure of the database over time. If you didn't know DHH is the creator of Rails.
EDIT 2:
A thought I just had, which would let you skip the notion of using migrations if you weren't comfortable with it. You could 100% rely on your db/seeds.rb file. When you think of "seeds.rb" you think of creating information, but this doesn't necessarily have to be the case. Rather than just blindly creating data, you can check to see if the pertinent data already exists, and if it does then modify and save it, but if it doesn't exist then just create a new record plain and simple.
db/seeds.rb
toys = Category.find_by_name("Toys")
if toys then
toys.name = "More Toys"
toys.save
else
Category.create(:name => "More Toys")
end
Run rake db:seeds and that code will run. You just need to consistently update the seeds.rb file every time you change your data, so that 1) it's searching for the right data value and 2) it's updating the correct attributes.
In the end there's no right or wrong way to do this, it's just whatever works for you and your workflow.
The place to load development data is db/seeds.rb. Since you can write arbitrary Ruby code there, you can even load your dev data from external files, for instance.
there is a file called db/seeds.rb
you can instantiate records using it
user1=User.create(:email=>"user#test.com",
:first_name=>"user",
:last_name=>"name",
:bio=>"User bio...",
:website=>"http://www.website.com",
:occupation=>"WebDeveloper",
:password=>"changeme",
:password_confirmation=>"changeme",
:avatar => File.open(File.join(Rails.root, '/app/assets/images/profiles/image.png'))
)
user2=User.create(:email=>"user2#test.com",
:first_name=>"user2",
:last_name=>"name2",
:bio=>"User2 bio...",
:website=>"http://www.website.com",
:occupation=>"WebDeveloper",
:password=>"changeme",
:password_confirmation=>"changeme",
:avatar => File.open(File.join(Rails.root, '/app/assets/images/profiles/image.png'))
)
Just run rake db:seed from command line to get it into the db