In Rails we have these nice things we can use in our controllers called filters. A filter is simply a method that will get executed before, after or around the execution of a specific action in a controller. After looking at a bunch of different Rails apps, I never liked any of the names given to these filter methods.
For example:
class UsersController < ApplicationController
before_filter :ensure_logged_in
def show
@user = User.find params[:id]
end
private
def ensure_logged_in
unless session[:user_id]
flash[:notice] = 'You must log in'
redirect_to new_session_path
end
end
end
I’ve seen this technique of prefixing the word ‘ensure’ to filter names. I think this sucks and results in long ugly method names.
I’ve also seen this:
class UsersController < ApplicationController
before_filter :require_logged_in
def show
@user = User.find params[:id]
end
private
def require_logged_in
unless session[:user_id]
flash[:notice] = 'You must log in'
redirect_to new_session_path
end
end
end
Prefixing all filter names with ‘require’. Same thing as ‘ensure’; long ugly method names.
I’ve adopted the following convention:
class UsersController < ApplicationController
before_filter :logged_in?
def show
@user = User.find params[:id]
end
private
def logged_in?
unless session[:user_id]
flash[:notice] = 'You must log in'
redirect_to new_session_path
end
end
end
Now this flies in the face of normal Ruby use of the ‘?’ operator, i.e. it should only be used for query methods (methods that return a boolean). But it reads so much better and the method name is nice and short.
