MVC
What is M.V.C?
MVC (Model-View-Controller) is a way to structure a web-app folder where the model deals with the backend, the view deals with the front end, and the controller deals with connecting everything. A common example that is given for MVC is the restaurant example. The chef (Model) creates food (instances of a class) and manages the inventory (database). The waiter (Controller) will take the order (request) from the customer (View) and take it to the chef (Model) and then it will take the order (request) back to the customer (View). The customer (View) can make the order (request).
What is Model?
Model is the data management system of the program. Model also will contain the majority of the logic. The rails command to generate a model would be:
rails g model (Model name) (table column name):(column data type)
If we were to code the MVC example, we would do
rails g model Restaurant name:string address:string
.The above command would output
invoke active_record
create db/migrate/20191216200109_create_restaurants.rb
create app/models/restaurant.rb
The models/restaurant.rb file is where your restaurant class will go and the db/migrate/20191216200109_create_restaurants.rb file is where your data table goes. Combined, they make the model in MVC. For more information on generators https://lmgtfy.com/?q=Rails+generators.
What is the view?
View is the frontend part of your code that will contain code that generates what your user will see. If we continue the example from above, we could put:
create app/controllers/restaurants_controller.rb
route get 'restaurants/new'
get 'restaurants/create'
get 'restaurants/edit'
get 'restaurants/update'
get 'restaurants/destroy'
get 'restaurants/index'
get 'restaurants/show'
invoke erb
create app/views/restaurants
create app/views/restaurants/new.html.erb
create app/views/restaurants/create.html.erb
create app/views/restaurants/edit.html.erb
create app/views/restaurants/update.html.erb
create app/views/restaurants/destroy.html.erb
create app/views/restaurants/index.html.erb
create app/views/restaurants/show.html.erb
invoke helper
create app/helpers/restaurants_helper.rb
invoke assets
invoke scss
create app/assets/stylesheets/restaurants.scss
The controller command creates the 7 RESTful routes for restaurant and creates a view file and a controller method for each route. It is a very useful tool. There is one drawback to it, though. It creates a view file for create, update, and destroy. As soon as the command creates those files, you may have to delete it.
What is the controller?
Controller is the code that connects both side, Model and View. When the request is made by browser, it first goes to the Controller, then it is sent to Model or View depending on what is needed for that request. The above command created the Controller for us already.
class RestaurantsController < ApplicationController
def new
end
def create
end
def edit
end
def update
end
def destroy
end
def index
end
def show
end
end
When the user searches a url on our website, it will come to one of these methods. For example, if the user searches the home page, it will go to the index method. The index method will take the request and do whatever logic we put in that method and then send it off to the Model if needed. if not, then it will send it off to the user the correct View file.
Model, View, and Controller is a way of applying the concept of separation of concerns, where every piece of code is just responsible for one thing. If there is a need to debug or update, we would know exactly where everything is, so it would make our lives easier for us. MVC also allows teams to work together on the same app without git conflicts
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