Sinatra's modular style is a great choice for lightweight web apps and simple APIs. That also makes it a great choice for coding exercises and learning about web development. But configuring a fleshed-out modular app can be over the head of a beginner (especially since many of the Sinatra recipes have become dated), and experienced programmers may miss the ease of having Rails take care of configuration so they can get to work.
Sinatra CLI solves this problem with a lightly opinionated project generator. Starting a new project is as simple as:
$ sinatra new app_name
That starts a series of modular generators which create an app with default configuration, ready to start hacking on.
The default configuration is a modular-style app with a Gemfile.
-
App and environment configuration is contained in the
configfolder. -
The main
app.rbfile and other business logic, as well as thepublicandviewsfolders, is contained in theappfolder. require_all should automatically load files inapp, as long as they declare their dependencies. Rerun is configured to reload the app when it detects changes to theappfolder. -
Environmental variables are handled by dotenv.
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ActiveSupport is included in the Gemfile, giving access to Rails' extensions of the core Ruby libraries.
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Pry and Bettor Errors are included to aid development.
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RSpec and Capybara are installed for testing, along with a
TestHelpermodule to write test helpers in.
More options and default features are planned, including Webpack, Javascript & CSS frameworks, and ActiveRecord.
$ gem install sinatra-cli
To create a new app:
$ sinatra new APP_PATH
This can be modified with the following options:
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| --skip-test, -t | Don't generate an RSpec installation |
| --haml | Use Haml for views, instead of ERB |
| --slim | Use Slim for views, instead of ERB |
You can view these options by calling the command with --help or -h.
Most of the generators can be accessed to add specific elements à la carte. The folder structure from the modular app generator is assumed, and existing files may be overwritten (it will ask what to do).
$ sinatra generate GENERATOR
| Generator | Description |
|---|---|
| modular | Generate a modular-style Sinatra app |
| classic | Generate a classic-style Sinatra app |
| tests | Generate an RSpec installation |
The classic generator creates a barebones Sinatra app, suitable for those learning the very basics. It creates one ruby file, a public folder, a views folder, and no Gemfile. It is not intended to be run with other generators.
To see the options for a generator, call the command with --help or -h.
Like other frameworks with a command line interface, Sinatra CLI can be used to start the server:
$ sinatra server
This can be called with --no-reload or -r to disable reloading.
Sinatra CLI can also run the test suite:
$ sinatra test [arguments]
Any arguments will be passed to the testing framework. Also aliased as sinatra spec.
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/philliplongman/sinatra-cli.
After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.
To install the gem onto your machine from the local files, run bundle exec rake install.
The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.