#Whales

There's Rails, there's Sails, so why not Whales? Whales is a lightweight web framework written in Ruby, inspired by popular MVC frameworks like Rails, Django, and Express.

##Installation

Whales can be installed using RubyGems: gem install 'whales'

Or you can include it directly in your projects Gemfile: gem 'whales', '0.1.1'

##Your First Whales Project Create a new app:

whales new MyApp

Start working:

# cd into the new folder
cd MyApp

# start the server
whales server

##Documentation## ###WhalesORM### WhalesORM is the object-relational mapper behind Whales. It connects to a SQLite database that the user can create and modify in their db/database.sql file.

####WhalesORM::Base#### The features of WhalesORM are accessed by making a class that inherits from WhalesORM::Base. The base class provides the following methods:

::all: returns all the instances of the class stored in the table.

::columns: returns an array with the columns of the class's table.

::destroy_all: deletes all the rows in the class's table.

::find(id): returns the object of the class with the given id.

::find_by_col_x(value): returns the object(s) of the class whose col_x equals value. Implemented using Ruby's method_missing. Also can be extended to ::find_by_col_x_and_col_y(val_x, val_y).

::table_name=(name): allows the user to set a custom table name for the class

::table_name: returns the table name, which defaults to the pluralized, camel-cased class name.

#attributes: returns the names of all the attributes for the object.

#attribute_values: returns the values for all the object's attributes.

#destroy: deletes the object from the database. Returns the object.

#insert: inserts the object as a row in the class's table

#save: if the object is not in the database, it inserts it; if it is, it calls update.

#update: updates the object's entry in the database

####WhalesORM::QueryMethods#### WhalesORM::Base gains additional methods by extending the WhalesORM::QueryMethods module.

::where(params): gets objects from the database that match the given params hash. This method is chainable and lazy-evaluating.

This is implemented using a WhalesORM::Relation class that inherits from Ruby's BasicObject. It puts off the database call until it gets a method call it doesn't recognize.

module WhalesORM
  class Relation < BasicObject
    ...
    def method_missing(method, *args, &blk)
      results = self.execute
      results.send(method, *args, &blk)
    end
    ...
  end
end

::includes(relation): helps to prevent N+1 queries by including the given relation in the query. Also lazy-evaluating.

####WhalesORM::Associatable#### WhalesORM::Base also extends WhalesORM::Associatable.

::belongs_to(relation_name): associates the class to relation_name via a foreign key relation_name_id so that the method #relation_name returns an object of class relation_name with id equal to relation__name_id

###WhalesActions### WhalesActions provides the Views and Controllers, as well as the server and routing, for Whales. It uses a WEBrick server, and ERB for templating.

####WhalesController::Base#### The features of WhalesController are accessed by making a class that inherits from WhalesController::Base. The base class provides the following methods:

#flash : allows access to the flash, which stores temporary cookies in the browser

#form_authenticity_token : provides an authenticity token to protect from CSRF attacks

#redirect_to : redirects to a different page from a controller action

#render : renders an ERB template as a View

#session : allows access to the session, which can be used to store cookies in the browser