To build a simple product catalog and shopping cart using Ruby on Rails, you will need to do the following:
Install Ruby and Rails:
Make sure you have Ruby and Rails installed on your system. You can check if you already have Ruby installed by running the command ruby -v in your terminal. If you don’t have Ruby installed, you can install it using a package manager like rbenv or rvm. To install Rails, run the command gem install rails.
Create a new Rails project:
Run the command rails new mystore to create a new Rails project called “mystore”. This will create a new directory called “mystore” and generate the necessary files and directories for a Rails app.
Set up the database:
Rails uses a database to store data, such as products and orders. By default, Rails uses the SQLite database, which is fine for a small store. If you want to use a different database, you can specify it in the Gemfile and run the appropriate commands to set it up.
Define the models:
In a Rails app, a model is a class that represents a table in the database. For a store, you will need at least two models: one for the products and one for the orders. To create a model, run the command rails generate model Product name:string price:decimal:precision:8:scale:2 description:text to create a model called “Product” with a name, price, and description field. Repeat this process to create a model for orders.
Set up the controllers and views:
In a Rails app, the controller is responsible for handling requests from the user and rendering the appropriate view. To create a controller for your store, run the command rails generate controller Products. This will create a new controller called “Products” and generate the necessary files and directories for the views.
Create the routes:
In a Rails app, the routes define the URL patterns that map to the appropriate controller actions. To create routes for your store, open the file config/routes.rb and add lines like resources :products and resources :orders. This will create routes for the basic CRUD (create, read, update, delete) actions for the products and orders.
Add some seed data:
To add some initial data to your store, you can use the Rails seeds.rb file. Open the file db/seeds.rb and add some code to create some products using the model you defined earlier. Then run the command rails db:seed to add the seed data to the database.
Implement the shopping cart:
To implement the shopping cart, you can use a session to store the current cart. In the ApplicationController, you can add a before_action callback to set the @cart variable for every request. You can then add methods to the ProductsController to add and remove items from the cart.
Test the app:
Run the command rails server to start the Rails development server, and visit http://localhost:3000 in your web browser to see your store. You should be able to see the products you added in the seed data and add them to the cart.
That’s a basic overview of how to build a simple product catalog and shopping cart using Ruby on Rails. There are many more details and features you can add to your store, such as user authentication, payment processing, and order history.
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