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Learn how to add a database to a Rails app.

Saving Data

Great! You created a new Rails app named MessengerApp.

Looking at [this diagram of the request/response cycle](https://www.codecademy.com/articles/request-response-cycle-dynamic), we need four parts to build a Rails app - a model, a route, a controller, and a view.
 
Let's start here by creating a model.

Model


Nicely done! The app now takes in messages through a form and saves them into the database. How does this work? Let's use the request/response cycle as a guide to trace how a user's request flows through the app.

When we visited `http://localhost:4001/messages/new` to create a new message, it triggered the first turn of the request/response cycle: 

1. The browser makes a HTTP GET request for the URL `/messages/new`.
2. The Rails router maps this URL to the Messages controller's `new` action. The `new` action creates a new `Message` object `@message` and passes it on to the view in **app/views/messages/new.html.erb**.
3. In the view, `form_for` creates a form with the fields of the `@message` object.

Then when you fill out the form and press Create, it triggers the second turn of the request/response cycle: 

1. The browser sends the data to the Rails app via an HTTP POST request to the URL `/messages`.
2. This time, the Rails router maps this URL to the `create` action.
3. The create action uses the `message_params` method to safely collect data from the form and update the database.

Here we used `link_to` to create a link to `/messages/new`. Instead of hard coding `<a>` elements, we can use `link_to` to generate links:
  - the first parameter is the link text
  - the second parameter is the URL


Create messages II

What did we just do?

1\. The `rails generate model` command created a new model named Message. In doing so, Rails created two files:
1. a model file in **app/models/message.rb**. The model represents a table in the database.
2. a migration file in **db/migrate/**. Migrations are a way to update the database.

2\. Open the migration file in **db/migrate/**. The migration file contains a few things:
1. The `change` method tells Rails what change to make to the database. Here it uses the `create_table` method to create a new table in the database for storing messages.
2. Inside `create_table`, we added `t.text :content`. This will create a text column called `content` in the messages tables.
3. The final line `t.timestamps` is a Rails command that creates two more columns in the messages table called `created_at` and `updated_at`. These columns are automatically set when a message is created and updated.

3\. The `bundle exec rake db:migrate` command updates the database with the new messages data model. With this command, we instruct the bundler to execute (`exec`) a rake task, in this case, `migrate`, on the database (`db`).

4\. Finally the `bundle exec rake db:seed` command seeds the database with sample data from **db/seeds.rb**.

Controller

Nice work. We added a controller and a route to the Rails app.

Why does the Messages controller use an action named `index`? Check out the diagram in the browser. Rails provides seven standard controller actions for doing common operations with data. Here we want to display a list of all messages, so we used the `index` action.

Putting it all together:
1. When a user visits `http://localhost:4001/messages`, the routes file maps this request to the Messages controller's `index` action.
2. The `index` action retrieves all messages from the database and stores them in the variable `@messages`.

The `@messages` variable is passed on to the view. The view should display each message, so let's set it up next.

View

So far we've built a Rails app containing a static page. To do this, we used a controller, a route, and a view. The <a href="https://www.codecademy.com/articles/request-response-cycle-static" target="_blank">request/response cycle</a> summarizes how these three parts work together.

However, a Rails app with static pages looks the same for all users. How can we create apps that save information? We do this with a _database_. Here's how a database fits into the request-response cycle. Check out the diagram in the browser.

1. When you type `http://localhost:4001/welcome`, the browser makes a request for the URL `/welcome`.
2. The request hits the Rails router.
3. The router maps the URL to a controller action to handle the request.
4. The controller action receives the request, and asks the model to fetch data from the database.
5. The model returns data to the controller action.
6. The controller action passes the data on to the view.
7. The view renders the page as HTML.
8. The controller sends the HTML back to the browser.

Request/Response Cycle


Nice work! The app now displays a list of all messages in the database. How does this work?

The file **index.html.erb** is a _web template_. Web templates are HTML files that contain variables and control flow statements. Rather than write the same HTML over and over again for each message, we can use web templates to loop through and display data from the database.


In this case:
1. `<% @messages.each do |message| %>` iterates through each message in `@messages` array. We created `@messages` in the Messages controller's `index` action.
2. For each message, we use `<%= message.content %>` and `<%= message.created_at %>` to display its content and the time when it was created.

The default web templating language in Rails is embedded Ruby, or ERB.


Create messages I

Congratulations! You built a messaging app that uses a database to store messages. What can we generalize so far?

* A _model_ represents a table in the database.
* A _migration_ is a way to update the database with a new table, or changes to an existing table.
* Rails provides [seven standard controller actions](https://www.codecademy.com/articles/standard-controller-actions) for doing common things such as display and create data
* Data can be displayed in the view using ERB _web templating_.
* Data can be saved into the database using a web form.


