Option to create alternate file if it doesn't exist

[henrik]

It's a bit of a chore to create the alternate file (typically the spec for a model or helper) if you didn't use a generator.

It would be neat if Rails.vim had some way to do this. Perhaps :A! to jump to alternate file and create it, or prompt to create it, if not there? Or perhaps it should always prompt for that?

An argument against is if you accidentally mix up :R and :A (I do every so often) and it creates files you don't want. But if it would prompt, or would take an exclamation mark, that would probably be good enough. So you do :A, it says "no such file", you do :A! instead.

Similarly for :R, I suppose, to create views.

[tpope]

Well bang for edit commands typically forcefully discards changes, so that's a bit weird to repurpose. The other issue is that there are frequently multiple possibilities for alternate files such as miniunit/rspec and eruby/haml. Until recently, the best we could do would be to guess (done with some success in, for example, :Runittest foo!), but now I guess it would be possible to introspect the app's generator config.

For me, the biggest pain point isn't in having to type :Runittest foo! rather than :A!, but in having to fill in the boilerplate afterwards. I've wanted to add some sort of basic templating system for a while now.

[henrik]

Tim, thanks a lot for responding. All good points.

I didn't realize until your comment that I can do :Rmodel foo! to create "app/models/foo.rb" if it doesn't exist, etc. Given those commands, I agree the lack of ":A!" etc isn't a huge pain point. Might be slightly more convenient, but I didn't realize Rails.vim could already create those files for me.

[danigb]

I also didn't realize until i read this issue, and I have to say vim-rails is amazing :) thanks @tpope !

[jondkinney]

Has there been any development in people's workflow for doing TDD within vim for having the editor generate some of this boilerplate for us? @tpope you mentioned you have wanted a templating system, any idea if someone else created one yet? Or have you had any progress in that area? I'm happy to help to the extent that I can, though my vimscript is rather lacking outside of a pretty hefty .vimrc setup.

[tpope]

There is a templating system now, so long as you create your files with a navigation command (:Eunittest foo!).

[jondkinney]

Cool, thanks @tpope, that works. Doing :Emodel FunTime! or REmodel FunTime! creates the class, but it doesn't inherit from ActiveRecord::Base by default. Is there a way to have it do that? I'd imagine if I'm creating a 'model' then I'd want it to inherit from AR (I realize not all 'models' need to do that), but maybe :Eclass FunTime! would be a good default to just a straight up class without a parent? I can see both being useful since often times I do create POROs, but leaving the inheritance off by default I guess wouldn't be my preference.

[tpope]

Generally when I'm creating an ActiveRecord model, I want to create a migration at the same time, at which point using a generator makes more sense. But it's all configurable with projections.

[jondkinney]

Good point about the simultaneous migration thus a generator being a better option. I can get on board with that.

[tpope]

I have enabled an experimental feature to prompt to create an alternate if it doesn't exist if 'confirm' is set. Currently it has the following limitations:

• Alternate only, not related.
• Doesn't fill in the template.
• Only works for alternates integrated into the projection system.

For that last one, I could use some contributions. If you want to help, take a look at e6d2536 and try to replicate it for some other coherent groups of alternates.