Sinatra is a DSL for quickly creating web applications in Ruby with minimal effort:
# myapp.rb require 'sinatra' get '/' do 'Hello world!' end
Install the gem:
gem install sinatra
And run with:
ruby myapp.rb
View at: http://localhost:4567
It is recommended to also run gem install thin
, which Sinatra will
pick up if available.
yield
and nested layoutsIn Sinatra, a route is an HTTP method paired with a URL-matching pattern. Each route is associated with a block:
get '/' do .. show something .. end post '/' do .. create something .. end put '/' do .. replace something .. end patch '/' do .. modify something .. end delete '/' do .. annihilate something .. end options '/' do .. appease something .. end link '/' do .. affiliate something .. end unlink '/' do .. separate something .. end
Routes are matched in the order they are defined. The first route that matches the request is invoked.
Route patterns may include named parameters, accessible via the
params
hash:
get '/hello/:name' do # matches "GET /hello/foo" and "GET /hello/bar" # params[:name] is 'foo' or 'bar' "Hello #{params[:name]}!" end
You can also access named parameters via block parameters:
get '/hello/:name' do |n| # matches "GET /hello/foo" and "GET /hello/bar" # params[:name] is 'foo' or 'bar' # n stores params[:name] "Hello #{n}!" end
Route patterns may also include splat (or wildcard) parameters, accessible
via the params[:splat]
array:
get '/say/*/to/*' do # matches /say/hello/to/world params[:splat] # => ["hello", "world"] end get '/download/*.*' do # matches /download/path/to/file.xml params[:splat] # => ["path/to/file", "xml"] end
Or with block parameters:
get '/download/*.*' do |path, ext| [path, ext] # => ["path/to/file", "xml"] end
Route matching with Regular Expressions:
get %r{/hello/([\w]+)} do "Hello, #{params[:captures].first}!" end
Or with a block parameter:
get %r{/hello/([\w]+)} do |c| "Hello, #{c}!" end
Route patterns may have optional parameters:
get '/posts.?:format?' do # matches "GET /posts" and any extension "GET /posts.json", "GET /posts.xml" etc. end
Routes may also utilize query parameters:
get '/posts' do # matches "GET /posts?title=foo&author=bar" title = params[:title] author = params[:author] # uses title and author variables; query is optional to the /posts route end
By the way, unless you disable the path traversal attack protection (see below), the request path might be modified before matching against your routes.
Routes may include a variety of matching conditions, such as the user agent:
get '/foo', :agent => /Songbird (\d\.\d)[\d\/]*?/ do "You're using Songbird version #{params[:agent][0]}" end get '/foo' do # Matches non-songbird browsers end
Other available conditions are host_name
and provides
:
get '/', :host_name => /^admin\./ do "Admin Area, Access denied!" end get '/', :provides => 'html' do haml :index end get '/', :provides => ['rss', 'atom', 'xml'] do builder :feed end
You can easily define your own conditions:
set(:probability) { |value| condition { rand <= value } } get '/win_a_car', :probability => 0.1 do "You won!" end get '/win_a_car' do "Sorry, you lost." end
For a condition that takes multiple values use a splat:
set(:auth) do |*roles| # <- notice the splat here condition do unless logged_in? && roles.any? {|role| current_user.in_role? role } redirect "/login/", 303 end end end get "/my/account/", :auth => [:user, :admin] do "Your Account Details" end get "/only/admin/", :auth => :admin do "Only admins are allowed here!" end
The return value of a route block determines at least the response body passed on to the HTTP client, or at least the next middleware in the Rack stack. Most commonly, this is a string, as in the above examples. But other values are also accepted.
You can return any object that would either be a valid Rack response, Rack body object or HTTP status code:
[status (Fixnum), headers (Hash), response body (responds to #each)]
[status (Fixnum), response body (responds to #each)]
#each
and passes nothing but strings to
the given blockThat way we can, for instance, easily implement a streaming example:
class Stream def each 100.times { |i| yield "#{i}\n" } end end get('/') { Stream.new }
You can also use the stream
helper method (described below) to reduce boiler
plate and embed the streaming logic in the route.
As shown above, Sinatra ships with built-in support for using String patterns and regular expressions as route matches. However, it does not stop there. You can easily define your own matchers:
class AllButPattern Match = Struct.new(:captures) def initialize(except) @except = except @captures = Match.new([]) end def match(str) @captures unless @except === str end end def all_but(pattern) AllButPattern.new(pattern) end get all_but("/index") do # ... end
Note that the above example might be over-engineered, as it can also be expressed as:
get // do pass if request.path_info == "/index" # ... end
Or, using negative look ahead:
get %r{^(?!/index$)} do # ... end
Static files are served from the ./public
directory. You can specify
a different location by setting the :public_folder
option:
set :public_folder, File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/static'
Note that the public directory name is not included in the URL. A file
./public/css/style.css
is made available as
http://example.com/css/style.css
.
Use the :static_cache_control
setting (see below) to add
Cache-Control
header info.
Each template language is exposed via its own rendering method. These methods simply return a string:
get '/' do erb :index end
This renders views/index.erb
.
Instead of a template name, you can also just pass in the template content directly:
get '/' do code = "<%= Time.now %>" erb code end
Templates take a second argument, the options hash:
get '/' do erb :index, :layout => :post end
This will render views/index.erb
embedded in the
views/post.erb
(default is views/layout.erb
, if it exists).
Any options not understood by Sinatra will be passed on to the template engine:
get '/' do haml :index, :format => :html5 end
You can also set options per template language in general:
set :haml, :format => :html5 get '/' do haml :index end
Options passed to the render method override options set via set
.
Available Options:
Templates are assumed to be located directly under the ./views
directory. To
use a different views directory:
set :views, settings.root + '/templates'
One important thing to remember is that you always have to reference templates
with symbols, even if they're in a subdirectory (in this case, use:
:'subdir/template'
or 'subdir/template'.to_sym
). You must use a symbol
because otherwise rendering methods will render any strings passed to them
directly.
get '/' do haml '%div.title Hello World' end
Renders the template string.
Some languages have multiple implementations. To specify what implementation to use (and to be thread-safe), you should simply require it first:
require 'rdiscount' # or require 'bluecloth' get('/') { markdown :index }
It also takes a block for inline templates (see example).
It also takes a block for inline templates (see example).
Since you cannot call Ruby methods (except for yield
) from a Liquid
template, you almost always want to pass locals to it.
It is not possible to call methods from markdown, nor to pass locals to it. You therefore will usually use it in combination with another rendering engine:
erb :overview, :locals => { :text => markdown(:introduction) }
Note that you may also call the markdown
method from within other templates:
%h1 Hello From Haml! %p= markdown(:greetings)
Since you cannot call Ruby from Markdown, you cannot use layouts written in
Markdown. However, it is possible to use another rendering engine for the
template than for the layout by passing the :layout_engine
option.
It is not possible to call methods from textile, nor to pass locals to it. You therefore will usually use it in combination with another rendering engine:
erb :overview, :locals => { :text => textile(:introduction) }
Note that you may also call the textile
method from within other templates:
%h1 Hello From Haml! %p= textile(:greetings)
Since you cannot call Ruby from Textile, you cannot use layouts written in
Textile. However, it is possible to use another rendering engine for the
template than for the layout by passing the :layout_engine
option.
It is not possible to call methods from rdoc, nor to pass locals to it. You therefore will usually use it in combination with another rendering engine:
erb :overview, :locals => { :text => rdoc(:introduction) }
Note that you may also call the rdoc
method from within other templates:
%h1 Hello From Haml! %p= rdoc(:greetings)
Since you cannot call Ruby from RDoc, you cannot use layouts written in
RDoc. However, it is possible to use another rendering engine for the
template than for the layout by passing the :layout_engine
option.
Since you cannot call Ruby methods directly from an AsciiDoc template, you almost always want to pass locals to it.
Since you cannot call Ruby methods directly from a Radius template, you almost always want to pass locals to it.
It also takes a block for inline templates (see example).
It is not possible to call methods from creole, nor to pass locals to it. You therefore will usually use it in combination with another rendering engine:
erb :overview, :locals => { :text => creole(:introduction) }
Note that you may also call the creole
method from within other templates:
%h1 Hello From Haml! %p= creole(:greetings)
Since you cannot call Ruby from Creole, you cannot use layouts written in
Creole. However, it is possible to use another rendering engine for the
template than for the layout by passing the :layout_engine
option.
It is not possible to call methods from MediaWiki markup, nor to pass locals to it. You therefore will usually use it in combination with another rendering engine:
erb :overview, :locals => { :text => mediawiki(:introduction) }
Note that you may also call the mediawiki
method from within other templates:
%h1 Hello From Haml! %p= mediawiki(:greetings)
Since you cannot call Ruby from MediaWiki, you cannot use layouts written in
MediaWiki. However, it is possible to use another rendering engine for the
template than for the layout by passing the :layout_engine
option.
Before being able to use Stylus templates, you need to load stylus
and
stylus/tilt
first:
require 'sinatra' require 'stylus' require 'stylus/tilt' get '/' do stylus :example end
The template source is evaluated as a Ruby string, and the
resulting json variable is converted using #to_json
:
json = { :foo => 'bar' } json[:baz] = key
The :callback
and :variable
options can be used to decorate the rendered
object:
var resource = {"foo":"bar","baz":"qux"}; present(resource);
Since calling ruby methods is not idiomatic in WLang, you almost always want to pass locals
to it. Layouts written in WLang and yield
are supported, though.
Templates are evaluated within the same context as route handlers. Instance variables set in route handlers are directly accessible by templates:
get '/:id' do @foo = Foo.find(params[:id]) haml '%h1= @foo.name' end
Or, specify an explicit Hash of local variables:
get '/:id' do foo = Foo.find(params[:id]) haml '%h1= bar.name', :locals => { :bar => foo } end
This is typically used when rendering templates as partials from within other templates.
yield
and nested layoutsA layout is usually just a template that calls yield
.
Such a template can be used either through the :template
option as
described above, or it can be rendered with a block as follows:
erb :post, :layout => false do erb :index end
This code is mostly equivalent to erb :index, :layout => :post
.
Passing blocks to rendering methods is most useful for creating nested layouts:
erb :main_layout, :layout => false do erb :admin_layout do erb :user end end
This can also be done in fewer lines of code with:
erb :admin_layout, :layout => :main_layout do erb :user end
Currently, the following rendering methods accept a block: erb
, haml
,
liquid
, slim
, wlang
.
Also the general render
method accepts a block.
Templates may be defined at the end of the source file:
require 'sinatra' get '/' do haml :index end __END__ @@ layout %html = yield @@ index %div.title Hello world.
NOTE: Inline templates defined in the source file that requires sinatra are
automatically loaded. Call enable :inline_templates
explicitly if you
have inline templates in other source files.
Templates may also be defined using the top-level template
method:
template :layout do "%html\n =yield\n" end template :index do '%div.title Hello World!' end get '/' do haml :index end
If a template named "layout" exists, it will be used each time a template
is rendered. You can individually disable layouts by passing
:layout => false
or disable them by default via
set :haml, :layout => false
:
get '/' do haml :index, :layout => !request.xhr? end
To associate a file extension with a template engine, use
Tilt.register
. For instance, if you like to use the file extension
tt
for Textile templates, you can do the following:
Tilt.register :tt, Tilt[:textile]
First, register your engine with Tilt, then create a rendering method:
Tilt.register :myat, MyAwesomeTemplateEngine helpers do def myat(*args) render(:myat, *args) end end get '/' do myat :index end
Renders ./views/index.myat
. See https://github.com/rtomayko/tilt to
learn more about Tilt.
Before filters are evaluated before each request within the same context as the routes will be and can modify the request and response. Instance variables set in filters are accessible by routes and templates:
before do @note = 'Hi!' request.path_info = '/foo/bar/baz' end get '/foo/*' do @note #=> 'Hi!' params[:splat] #=> 'bar/baz' end
After filters are evaluated after each request within the same context as the routes will be and can also modify the request and response. Instance variables set in before filters and routes are accessible by after filters:
after do puts response.status end
Note: Unless you use the body
method rather than just returning a String from
the routes, the body will not yet be available in the after filter, since it is
generated later on.
Filters optionally take a pattern, causing them to be evaluated only if the request path matches that pattern:
before '/protected/*' do authenticate! end after '/create/:slug' do |slug| session[:last_slug] = slug end
Like routes, filters also take conditions:
before :agent => /Songbird/ do # ... end after '/blog/*', :host_name => 'example.com' do # ... end
Use the top-level helpers
method to define helper methods for use in
route handlers and templates:
helpers do def bar(name) "#{name}bar" end end get '/:name' do bar(params[:name]) end
Alternatively, helper methods can be separately defined in a module:
module FooUtils def foo(name) "#{name}foo" end end module BarUtils def bar(name) "#{name}bar" end end helpers FooUtils, BarUtils
The effect is the same as including the modules in the application class.
A session is used to keep state during requests. If activated, you have one session hash per user session:
enable :sessions get '/' do "value = " << session[:value].inspect end get '/:value' do session[:value] = params[:value] end
Note that enable :sessions
actually stores all data in a cookie. This
might not always be what you want (storing lots of data will increase your
traffic, for instance). You can use any Rack session middleware: in order to
do so, do not call enable :sessions
, but instead pull in your
middleware of choice as you would any other middleware:
use Rack::Session::Pool, :expire_after => 2592000 get '/' do "value = " << session[:value].inspect end get '/:value' do session[:value] = params[:value] end
To improve security, the session data in the cookie is signed with a session secret. A random secret is generated for you by Sinatra. However, since this secret will change with every start of your application, you might want to set the secret yourself, so all your application instances share it:
set :session_secret, 'super secret'
If you want to configure it further, you may also store a hash with options in
the sessions
setting:
set :sessions, :domain => 'foo.com'
To share your session across other apps on subdomains of foo.com, prefix the domain with a . like this instead:
set :sessions, :domain => '.foo.com'
To immediately stop a request within a filter or route use:
halt
You can also specify the status when halting:
halt 410
Or the body:
halt 'this will be the body'
Or both:
halt 401, 'go away!'
With headers:
halt 402, {'Content-Type' => 'text/plain'}, 'revenge'
It is of course possible to combine a template with halt
:
halt erb(:error)
A route can punt processing to the next matching route using pass
:
get '/guess/:who' do pass unless params[:who] == 'Frank' 'You got me!' end get '/guess/*' do 'You missed!' end
The route block is immediately exited and control continues with the next matching route. If no matching route is found, a 404 is returned.
Sometimes pass
is not what you want, instead you would like to get the result
of calling another route. Simply use call
to achieve this:
get '/foo' do status, headers, body = call env.merge("PATH_INFO" => '/bar') [status, headers, body.map(&:upcase)] end get '/bar' do "bar" end
Note that in the example above, you would ease testing and increase performance
by simply moving "bar"
into a helper used by both /foo
and /bar
.
If you want the request to be sent to the same application instance rather than
a duplicate, use call!
instead of call
.
Check out the Rack specification if you want to learn more about call
.
It is possible and recommended to set the status code and response body with the
return value of the route block. However, in some scenarios you might want to
set the body at an arbitrary point in the execution flow. You can do so with the
body
helper method. If you do so, you can use that method from there on to
access the body:
get '/foo' do body "bar" end after do puts body end
It is also possible to pass a block to body
, which will be executed by the
Rack handler (this can be used to implement streaming, see "Return Values").
Similar to the body, you can also set the status code and headers:
get '/foo' do status 418 headers \ "Allow" => "BREW, POST, GET, PROPFIND, WHEN", "Refresh" => "Refresh: 20; http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2324.txt" body "I'm a tea pot!" end
Like body
, headers
and status
with no arguments can be used to access
their current values.
Sometimes you want to start sending out data while still generating parts of
the response body. In extreme examples, you want to keep sending data until
the client closes the connection. You can use the stream
helper to avoid
creating your own wrapper:
get '/' do stream do |out| out << "It's gonna be legen -\n" sleep 0.5 out << " (wait for it) \n" sleep 1 out << "- dary!\n" end end
This allows you to implement streaming APIs, Server Sent Events, and can be used as the basis for WebSockets. It can also be used to increase throughput if some but not all content depends on a slow resource.
Note that the streaming behavior, especially the number of concurrent requests,
highly depends on the web server used to serve the application. Some servers,
like WEBRick, might not even support streaming at all. If the server does not
support streaming, the body will be sent all at once after the block passed to
stream
finishes executing. Streaming does not work at all with Shotgun.
If the optional parameter is set to keep_open
, it will not call close
on
the stream object, allowing you to close it at any later point in the
execution flow. This only works on evented servers, like Thin and Rainbows.
Other servers will still close the stream:
# long polling set :server, :thin connections = [] get '/subscribe' do # register a client's interest in server events stream(:keep_open) { |out| connections << out } # purge dead connections connections.reject!(&:closed?) # acknowledge "subscribed" end post '/message' do connections.each do |out| # notify client that a new message has arrived out << params[:message] << "\n" # indicate client to connect again out.close end # acknowledge "message received" end
In the request scope, the logger
helper exposes a Logger
instance:
get '/' do logger.info "loading data" # ... end
This logger will automatically take your Rack handler's logging settings into account. If logging is disabled, this method will return a dummy object, so you do not have to worry about it in your routes and filters.
Note that logging is only enabled for Sinatra::Application
by
default, so if you inherit from Sinatra::Base
, you probably want to
enable it yourself:
class MyApp < Sinatra::Base configure :production, :development do enable :logging end end
To avoid any logging middleware to be set up, set the logging
setting to
nil
. However, keep in mind that logger
will in that case return nil
. A
common use case is when you want to set your own logger. Sinatra will use
whatever it will find in env['rack.logger']
.
When using send_file
or static files you may have mime types Sinatra
doesn't understand. Use mime_type
to register them by file extension:
configure do mime_type :foo, 'text/foo' end
You can also use it with the content_type
helper:
get '/' do content_type :foo "foo foo foo" end
For generating URLs you should use the url
helper method, for instance, in
Haml:
%a{:href => url('/foo')} foo
It takes reverse proxies and Rack routers into account, if present.
This method is also aliased to to
(see below for an example).
You can trigger a browser redirect with the redirect
helper method:
get '/foo' do redirect to('/bar') end
Any additional parameters are handled like arguments passed to halt
:
redirect to('/bar'), 303 redirect 'http://google.com', 'wrong place, buddy'
You can also easily redirect back to the page the user came from with
redirect back
:
get '/foo' do "<a href='/bar'>do something</a>" end get '/bar' do do_something redirect back end
To pass arguments with a redirect, either add them to the query:
redirect to('/bar?sum=42')
Or use a session:
enable :sessions get '/foo' do session[:secret] = 'foo' redirect to('/bar') end get '/bar' do session[:secret] end
Setting your headers correctly is the foundation for proper HTTP caching.
You can easily set the Cache-Control header like this:
get '/' do cache_control :public "cache it!" end
Pro tip: Set up caching in a before filter:
before do cache_control :public, :must_revalidate, :max_age => 60 end
If you are using the expires
helper to set the corresponding header,
Cache-Control
will be set automatically for you:
before do expires 500, :public, :must_revalidate end
To properly use caches, you should consider using etag
or last_modified
.
It is recommended to call those helpers before doing any heavy lifting, as they
will immediately flush a response if the client already has the current
version in its cache:
get '/article/:id' do @article = Article.find params[:id] last_modified @article.updated_at etag @article.sha1 erb :article end
It is also possible to use a weak ETag:
etag @article.sha1, :weak
These helpers will not do any caching for you, but rather feed the necessary information to your cache. If you are looking for a quick reverse-proxy caching solution, try rack-cache:
require "rack/cache" require "sinatra" use Rack::Cache get '/' do cache_control :public, :max_age => 36000 sleep 5 "hello" end
Use the :static_cache_control
setting (see below) to add
Cache-Control
header info to static files.
According to RFC 2616, your application should behave differently if the If-Match
or If-None-Match header is set to *
, depending on whether the resource
requested is already in existence. Sinatra assumes resources for safe (like get)
and idempotent (like put) requests are already in existence, whereas other
resources (for instance post requests) are treated as new resources. You
can change this behavior by passing in a :new_resource
option:
get '/create' do etag '', :new_resource => true Article.create erb :new_article end
If you still want to use a weak ETag, pass in a :kind
option:
etag '', :new_resource => true, :kind => :weak
For sending files, you can use the send_file
helper method:
get '/' do send_file 'foo.png' end
It also takes options:
send_file 'foo.png', :type => :jpg
The options are:
If supported by the Rack handler, other means than streaming from the Ruby
process will be used. If you use this helper method, Sinatra will automatically
handle range requests.
</dd>
The incoming request object can be accessed from request level (filter, routes,
error handlers) through the request
method:
# app running on http://example.com/example get '/foo' do t = %w[text/css text/html application/javascript] request.accept # ['text/html', '*/*'] request.accept? 'text/xml' # true request.preferred_type(t) # 'text/html' request.body # request body sent by the client (see below) request.scheme # "http" request.script_name # "/example" request.path_info # "/foo" request.port # 80 request.request_method # "GET" request.query_string # "" request.content_length # length of request.body request.media_type # media type of request.body request.host # "example.com" request.get? # true (similar methods for other verbs) request.form_data? # false request["some_param"] # value of some_param parameter. [] is a shortcut to the params hash. request.referrer # the referrer of the client or '/' request.user_agent # user agent (used by :agent condition) request.cookies # hash of browser cookies request.xhr? # is this an ajax request? request.url # "http://example.com/example/foo" request.path # "/example/foo" request.ip # client IP address request.secure? # false (would be true over ssl) request.forwarded? # true (if running behind a reverse proxy) request.env # raw env hash handed in by Rack end
Some options, like script_name
or path_info
, can also be
written:
before { request.path_info = "/" } get "/" do "all requests end up here" end
The request.body
is an IO or StringIO object:
post "/api" do request.body.rewind # in case someone already read it data = JSON.parse request.body.read "Hello #{data['name']}!" end
You can use the attachment
helper to tell the browser the response should be
stored on disk rather than displayed in the browser:
get '/' do attachment "store it!" end
You can also pass it a file name:
get '/' do attachment "info.txt" "store it!" end
Sinatra offers a time_for
helper method that generates a Time object
from the given value. It is also able to convert DateTime
, Date
and
similar classes:
get '/' do pass if Time.now > time_for('Dec 23, 2012') "still time" end
This method is used internally by expires
, last_modified
and akin. You can
therefore easily extend the behavior of those methods by overriding time_for
in your application:
helpers do def time_for(value) case value when :yesterday then Time.now - 24*60*60 when :tomorrow then Time.now + 24*60*60 else super end end end get '/' do last_modified :yesterday expires :tomorrow "hello" end
The find_template
helper is used to find template files for rendering:
find_template settings.views, 'foo', Tilt[:haml] do |file| puts "could be #{file}" end
This is not really useful. But it is useful that you can actually override this method to hook in your own lookup mechanism. For instance, if you want to be able to use more than one view directory:
set :views, ['views', 'templates'] helpers do def find_template(views, name, engine, &block) Array(views).each { |v| super(v, name, engine, &block) } end end
Another example would be using different directories for different engines:
set :views, :sass => 'views/sass', :haml => 'templates', :default => 'views' helpers do def find_template(views, name, engine, &block) _, folder = views.detect { |k,v| engine == Tilt[k] } folder ||= views[:default] super(folder, name, engine, &block) end end
You can also easily wrap this up in an extension and share with others!
Note that find_template
does not check if the file really exists but
rather calls the given block for all possible paths. This is not a performance
issue, since render
will use break
as soon as a file is found. Also,
template locations (and content) will be cached if you are not running in
development mode. You should keep that in mind if you write a really crazy
method.
Run once, at startup, in any environment:
configure do # setting one option set :option, 'value' # setting multiple options set :a => 1, :b => 2 # same as `set :option, true` enable :option # same as `set :option, false` disable :option # you can also have dynamic settings with blocks set(:css_dir) { File.join(views, 'css') } end
Run only when the environment (RACK_ENV
environment variable) is set to
:production
:
configure :production do ... end
Run when the environment is set to either :production
or :test
:
configure :production, :test do ... end
You can access those options via settings
:
configure do set :foo, 'bar' end get '/' do settings.foo? # => true settings.foo # => 'bar' ... end
Sinatra is using Rack::Protection to defend your application against common, opportunistic attacks. You can easily disable this behavior (which will open up your application to tons of common vulnerabilities):
disable :protection
To skip a single defense layer, set protection
to an options hash:
set :protection, :except => :path_traversal
You can also hand in an array in order to disable a list of protections:
set :protection, :except => [:path_traversal, :session_hijacking]
By default, Sinatra will only set up session based protection if :sessions
has been enabled. Sometimes you want to set up sessions on your own, though. In
that case you can get it to set up session based protections by passing the
:session
option:
use Rack::Session::Pool set :protection, :session => true
There are three predefined environments
: "development"
,
"production"
and "test"
. Environments can be set
through the RACK_ENV
environment variable. The default value is
"development"
. In the "development"
environment all templates are reloaded between
requests, and special not_found
and error
handlers
display stack traces in your browser.
In the "production"
and "test"
environments, templates are cached by default.
To run different environments, set the RACK_ENV
environment variable:
RACK_ENV=production ruby my_app.rb
You can use predefined methods: development?
, test?
and production?
to
check the current environment setting:
get '/' do if settings.development? "development!" else "not development!" end end
Error handlers run within the same context as routes and before filters, which
means you get all the goodies it has to offer, like haml
,
erb
, halt
, etc.
When a Sinatra::NotFound
exception is raised, or the response's status
code is 404, the not_found
handler is invoked:
not_found do 'This is nowhere to be found.' end
The error
handler is invoked any time an exception is raised from a route
block or a filter. The exception object can be obtained from the
sinatra.error
Rack variable:
error do 'Sorry there was a nasty error - ' + env['sinatra.error'].name end
Custom errors:
error MyCustomError do 'So what happened was...' + env['sinatra.error'].message end
Then, if this happens:
get '/' do raise MyCustomError, 'something bad' end
You get this:
So what happened was... something bad
Alternatively, you can install an error handler for a status code:
error 403 do 'Access forbidden' end get '/secret' do 403 end
Or a range:
error 400..510 do 'Boom' end
Sinatra installs special not_found
and error
handlers when
running under the development environment to display nice stack traces
and additional debugging information in your browser.
Sinatra rides on Rack, a minimal standard interface for Ruby web frameworks. One of Rack's most interesting capabilities for application developers is support for "middleware" -- components that sit between the server and your application monitoring and/or manipulating the HTTP request/response to provide various types of common functionality.
Sinatra makes building Rack middleware pipelines a cinch via a top-level
use
method:
require 'sinatra' require 'my_custom_middleware' use Rack::Lint use MyCustomMiddleware get '/hello' do 'Hello World' end
The semantics of use
are identical to those defined for the
Rack::Builder DSL
(most frequently used from rackup files). For example, the use
method
accepts multiple/variable args as well as blocks:
use Rack::Auth::Basic do |username, password| username == 'admin' && password == 'secret' end
Rack is distributed with a variety of standard middleware for logging,
debugging, URL routing, authentication, and session handling. Sinatra uses
many of these components automatically based on configuration so you
typically don't have to use
them explicitly.
You can find useful middleware in rack, rack-contrib, or in the Rack wiki.
Sinatra tests can be written using any Rack-based testing library or framework. Rack::Test is recommended:
require 'my_sinatra_app' require 'test/unit' require 'rack/test' class MyAppTest < Test::Unit::TestCase include Rack::Test::Methods def app Sinatra::Application end def test_my_default get '/' assert_equal 'Hello World!', last_response.body end def test_with_params get '/meet', :name => 'Frank' assert_equal 'Hello Frank!', last_response.body end def test_with_rack_env get '/', {}, 'HTTP_USER_AGENT' => 'Songbird' assert_equal "You're using Songbird!", last_response.body end end
Note: If you are using Sinatra in the modular style, replace Sinatra::Application
above with the class name of your app.
Defining your app at the top-level works well for micro-apps but has
considerable drawbacks when building reusable components such as Rack
middleware, Rails metal, simple libraries with a server component, or even
Sinatra extensions. The top-level assumes a micro-app style configuration
(e.g., a single application file, ./public
and ./views
directories, logging, exception detail page, etc.). That's where
Sinatra::Base
comes into play:
require 'sinatra/base' class MyApp < Sinatra::Base set :sessions, true set :foo, 'bar' get '/' do 'Hello world!' end end
The methods available to Sinatra::Base
subclasses are exactly the same as those
available via the top-level DSL. Most top-level apps can be converted to
Sinatra::Base
components with two modifications:
sinatra/base
instead of sinatra
;
otherwise, all of Sinatra's DSL methods are imported into the main
namespace.Sinatra::Base
.Sinatra::Base
is a blank slate. Most options are disabled by default,
including the built-in server. See
Configuring Settings
for details on available options and their behavior. If you want
behavior more similar to when you define your app at the top level (also
know as Classic style), you
can subclass Sinatra::Application
.
require 'sinatra/base' class MyApp < Sinatra::Application get '/' do 'Hello world!' end end
Contrary to common belief, there is nothing wrong with the classic style. If it suits your application, you do not have to switch to a modular application.
The main disadvantage of using the classic style rather than the modular style is that you will only have one Sinatra application per Ruby process. If you plan to use more than one, switch to the modular style. There is no reason you cannot mix the modular and the classic styles.
If switching from one style to the other, you should be aware of slightly different default settings:
There are two common options for starting a modular app, actively starting with
run!
:
# my_app.rb require 'sinatra/base' class MyApp < Sinatra::Base # ... app code here ... # start the server if ruby file executed directly run! if app_file == $0 end
Start with:
ruby my_app.rb
Or with a config.ru
file, which allows using any Rack handler:
# config.ru (run with rackup) require './my_app' run MyApp
Run:
rackup -p 4567
Write your app file:
# app.rb require 'sinatra' get '/' do 'Hello world!' end
And a corresponding config.ru
:
require './app' run Sinatra::Application
A config.ru
file is recommended if:
Sinatra::Base
.There is no need to switch to a config.ru
simply because you
switched to the modular style, and you don't have to use the modular style for running
with a config.ru
.
Not only is Sinatra able to use other Rack middleware, any Sinatra application can in turn be added in front of any Rack endpoint as middleware itself. This endpoint could be another Sinatra application, or any other Rack-based application (Rails/Ramaze/Camping/...):
require 'sinatra/base' class LoginScreen < Sinatra::Base enable :sessions get('/login') { haml :login } post('/login') do if params[:name] == 'admin' && params[:password] == 'admin' session['user_name'] = params[:name] else redirect '/login' end end end class MyApp < Sinatra::Base # middleware will run before filters use LoginScreen before do unless session['user_name'] halt "Access denied, please <a href='/login'>login</a>." end end get('/') { "Hello #{session['user_name']}." } end
Sometimes you want to create new applications at runtime without having to
assign them to a constant. You can do this with Sinatra.new
:
require 'sinatra/base' my_app = Sinatra.new { get('/') { "hi" } } my_app.run!
It takes the application to inherit from as an optional argument:
# config.ru (run with rackup) require 'sinatra/base' controller = Sinatra.new do enable :logging helpers MyHelpers end map('/a') do run Sinatra.new(controller) { get('/') { 'a' } } end map('/b') do run Sinatra.new(controller) { get('/') { 'b' } } end
This is especially useful for testing Sinatra extensions or using Sinatra in your own library.
This also makes using Sinatra as middleware extremely easy:
require 'sinatra/base' use Sinatra do get('/') { ... } end run RailsProject::Application
The scope you are currently in determines what methods and variables are available.
Every Sinatra application corresponds to a subclass of Sinatra::Base
.
If you are using the top-level DSL (require 'sinatra'
), then this
class is Sinatra::Application
, otherwise it is the subclass you
created explicitly. At class level you have methods like get
or before
, but
you cannot access the request
or session
objects, as there is only a
single application class for all requests.
Options created via set
are methods at class level:
class MyApp < Sinatra::Base # Hey, I'm in the application scope! set :foo, 42 foo # => 42 get '/foo' do # Hey, I'm no longer in the application scope! end end
You have the application scope binding inside:
helpers
set
Sinatra.new
You can reach the scope object (the class) like this:
configure { |c| ... }
)settings
from within the request scopeFor every incoming request, a new instance of your application class is
created, and all handler blocks run in that scope. From within this scope you
can access the request
and session
objects or call rendering methods like
erb
or haml
. You can access the application scope from within the request
scope via the settings
helper:
class MyApp < Sinatra::Base # Hey, I'm in the application scope! get '/define_route/:name' do # Request scope for '/define_route/:name' @value = 42 settings.get("/#{params[:name]}") do # Request scope for "/#{params[:name]}" @value # => nil (not the same request) end "Route defined!" end end
You have the request scope binding inside:
The delegation scope just forwards methods to the class scope. However, it
does not behave exactly like the class scope, as you do not have the class
binding. Only methods explicitly marked for delegation are available, and you
do not share variables/state with the class scope (read: you have a different
self
). You can explicitly add method delegations by calling
Sinatra::Delegator.delegate :method_name
.
You have the delegate scope binding inside:
require "sinatra"
Sinatra::Delegator
mixinHave a look at the code for yourself: here's the Sinatra::Delegator mixin being extending the main object.
Sinatra applications can be run directly:
ruby myapp.rb [-h] [-x] [-e ENVIRONMENT] [-p PORT] [-o HOST] [-s HANDLER]
Options are:
-h # help
-p # set the port (default is 4567)
-o # set the host (default is 0.0.0.0)
-e # set the environment (default is development)
-s # specify rack server/handler (default is thin)
-x # turn on the mutex lock (default is off)
The following Ruby versions are officially supported:
We also keep an eye on upcoming Ruby versions.
The following Ruby implementations are not officially supported but still are known to run Sinatra:
Not being officially supported means if things only break there and not on a supported platform, we assume it's not our issue but theirs.
We also run our CI against ruby-head (the upcoming 2.1.0), but we can't guarantee anything, since it is constantly moving. Expect 2.1.0 to be fully supported.
Sinatra should work on any operating system supported by the chosen Ruby implementation.
If you run MacRuby, you should gem install control_tower
.
Sinatra currently doesn't run on Cardinal, SmallRuby, BlueRuby or any Ruby version prior to 1.8.7.
If you would like to use Sinatra's latest bleeding-edge code, feel free to run your application against the master branch, it should be rather stable.
We also push out prerelease gems from time to time, so you can do a
gem install sinatra --pre
to get some of the latest features.
If you want to run your application with the latest Sinatra, using Bundler is the recommended way.
First, install bundler, if you haven't:
gem install bundler
Then, in your project directory, create a Gemfile
:
source 'https://rubygems.org' gem 'sinatra', :github => "sinatra/sinatra" # other dependencies gem 'haml' # for instance, if you use haml gem 'activerecord', '~> 3.0' # maybe you also need ActiveRecord 3.x
Note that you will have to list all your application's dependencies in the Gemfile
.
Sinatra's direct dependencies (Rack and Tilt) will, however, be automatically
fetched and added by Bundler.
Now you can run your app like this:
bundle exec ruby myapp.rb
Create a local clone and run your app with the sinatra/lib
directory
on the $LOAD_PATH
:
cd myapp git clone git://github.com/sinatra/sinatra.git ruby -I sinatra/lib myapp.rb
To update the Sinatra sources in the future:
cd myapp/sinatra git pull
You can build the gem on your own:
git clone git://github.com/sinatra/sinatra.git cd sinatra rake sinatra.gemspec rake install
If you install gems as root, the last step should be:
sudo rake install
Sinatra follows Semantic Versioning, both SemVer and SemVerTag.