In the case you developer using Docker, you have to adapt your environment in order to ease your life, like you did before.
For example, I had created a function sc (for script console) in order to start the Rails console no matter the version of Rails. Since I’m working with Docker, I have updated this function in order to use Docker when it is possible (with Fig).
I’m gonna to share with you my most used aliases :)
As I’m developing mostly Rails applications, my aliases are for Rails .
All my aliases start with ‘f’
You will see that all my aliases start with a f because I’m using Fig.
Fig is a very nice piece of software which allows you to orchestrate your Docker images. It’s very useful when you’re starting with Docker and you’re no yet confortable with all the Docker commands.
Fig work with a YAML file where you define which images you need (Database, interpretor, and so on) and also how to build your image.
Here, as an example, the fig.yml file from my Brewformulas.org project:
You can find the file in my Github repository.
When you’re done, you can then play with fig up to start up all the images, fig ps to see the running images and their statuses and more importantly (regarding this article) the fig run command which allows you to run a command within a docker image instance.
Fig run
Whenever you want to execute a command in your web docker image instance (web referes to the web key from the YAML file), you can use fig run web and then your command.
However there is an output issue with Fig which truncate the output very often but I have some tricks for you :) I have already opened the Github issue docker/fig#458.
List of aliases
frake
As you could image this alias will run fig run web rake. It’s the most useful alias since you have to use rake very often.
Run the migration scripts
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$ frake db:migrate
Rollback the database for the test environment
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$ frake db:rollback RAILS_ENV=test
Run the tests
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$ frake
Generate the Rails routes. Here is where the Fig output issue is the most disturbing. To solve the issue I’m using less so that moving up and down flush the output and solve the issue
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$ frake routes | less
fbundle
The next alias which I use the most. It runs in the background fig run web bundle.
Install new gems
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$ fbundle package --all
Update the gems
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$ fbundle update
Note: Don’t forget to re-build your fig image after having used those aliases with fig build.
fbe
This one is running in the background fib run web bundle exec and is useful when you want to run tests.
Execute a cucumber feature file
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$ fbe cucumber features/signup.feature
Execute all the RSpec specs
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$ fbe rspec
frails
In my case I use this one only for one usecase:
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$ frails g migration AddNameColumToPostsTable
You could use it to fire the Rails console
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$ frails c
fcop
In the case you’re, like me, using Rubocop, this alias will be useful. It runs in the background fig run web bundle exec rubocop -R
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$ fcop
Where to add all those aliases?
To keep it simple I have created a ~/.fig_aliases file in my home folder and added source ~/.fig_aliases in my ~/.zshrc file (can be done also within the ~/.bashrc for bash users).
Conclusion
This really helps and can be improved a lot ! In the case you have other or better aliases, feel free to contact me on my Twitter account @zedtux
