Most of you got the Table 'users' already exists error after cloning the crowdfunder-in-class and running a rake command.
This is because you cannot have two databases with the same name in postgres. When you clone a rails application twice you have to update the database name in database.yml
rake db:test:prepare
Rebuilds your test database. Whenever your run rake db:SOMETHING commands (ex. rake db:migrate) the commands run in the development environment. To run a rake command in the test environment (say you want to migrate your test database) you can run
rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=test
The rake db:test:prepare command runs a series of rake commands to rebuild your test database from scratch.
Sometimes you want to pass data from a form to the controller implicitly (without the user having to input the data). For example in the crowdfunder app we have a form on the project#show page that allows the user to create a new pledge.
<%= form_for @pledge do |f| %>
<p>
Amount <br>
<%= f.text_field :amount %>
</p>
<%= f.submit "Pledge Now" %>
<% end %>
We ask the user to enter the amount for the plege and click the 'Pledge Now' button. However in our database we have to store a user_id and a project_id along with the amount.
When we render the projects#show page we know which project the plege is for. We need to pass the project_id to the PledgesController. To do this we use the hidden_field.
<%= form_for @pledge do |f| %>
<%= f.hidden_field :project_id, @project.id %>
<p>
Amount <br>
<%= f.text_field :amount %>
</p>
<%= f.submit "Pledge Now" %>
<% end %>