Autocorrect plural ModelName passed to script/generate scaffold

+1 Tested and inspected. I like the auto-correcting nature as to not require remembering whether a singular or plural is required. I'd love to see this added to script/generate model and script/generate resource too.

+1

Pratik,

The only other place I found in which a prompt is used in generation - Rails::Generator::Commands::Create.file - can be overridden by the --force and --skip switches. Which means to stick with the precedent I'd still need to use a switch (or multiple switches) to override the prompt.

So if you're sure you want a prompt how about the default would be "ask" with optional switches of "--use-plural" and "--use-singular". Although, IMO, the default should be "use-singular".

Pat

Pratik,

I agree with Pat. Passing a plural to a scaffold generation is almost always a mistake, so why not just get out of the way and auto-correct it? After all, if you do decide to override the scaffold generation with a plural, the generated scaffolding will actually result in NameErrors while accessing the named resource routes. Let's continue to enforce good Rails conventions while also having niceties that auto-correct a common human error.

I don't see a prompt asking whether you want to pluralize or abort as adding a lot of benefit, especially considering you can always script/destroy your way out of a mistake. Was the idea for a prompt just a way to avoid the --force-plural option or was there a different underlying benefit that I'm not thinking of? Thanks for your time on this.

Hey,

I feel if Rails auto corrects the mistake, people would possibly keep repeating the same mistake. If we add an extra step for people making mistakes, it's more likely they'll take a notice and not do it again.

Having said that, if prompting user involves a lot of extra efforts on code front, we can just go with what you already have.

Thanks.

Cool. Pat's patch does display a warning message. I realize this isn't as painful as a halting prompt, but I'm one of those that can't stand seeing warnings, so it serves as enough of a wrist slap for me.

$ script/generate scaffold books
     warning  Plural version of the model detected, using singularized version.  Override with --force-plural.
     ...

I think prompting the user involves more effort than it's worth on the code front.

I do see your point but I think Jeremy's accidental example made it clear that it's not really a teaching tool that's needed but more a nudge in the right direction.

Hmm lol :)

This probably deserves a separate ticket, but what about 'uncountable' names e.g. "news" (where "news".singularize == "news".pluralize == "news")? This works fine except that the named routes clash so have to be overridden with e.g. :singular => 'news_item' in the routes and renaming all the references in the generated files. It would be nice if the generator detected this as well.

Assuming we come to an agreed upon solution and I get the 3 +1s necessary, I'll be looking into Ryan's suggestion next (to put the auto correction code into other Generators).

When that happens, I would be interested in looking into the handling of uncountables. But yes, it should be a separate ticket.

+1