Module: Inflector

Module | Inflector
In: | lib/active_support/inflector.rb

The Inflector transforms words from singular to plural, class names to table names, modularized class names to ones without, and class names to foreign keys. The default inflections for pluralization, singularization, and uncountable words are kept in inflections.rb.

The Rails core team has stated patches for the inflections library will not be accepted in order to avoid breaking legacy applications which may be relying on errant inflections. If you discover an incorrect inflection and require it for your application, you‘ll need to correct it yourself (explained below).

### Methods

camelize classify constantize dasherize demodulize foreign_key humanize inflections ordinalize pluralize singularize tableize titleize underscore

### Classes and Modules

Class Inflector::Inflections

### Public Instance methods

camelize(lower_case_and_underscored_word, first_letter_in_uppercase = true)

By default, `camelize` converts strings to UpperCamelCase. If the argument to `camelize` is set to `:lower` then `camelize` produces lowerCamelCase.

`camelize` will also convert ’/’ to ’::’ which is useful for converting paths to namespaces.

Examples:

      "active_record".camelize                # => "ActiveRecord"
      "active_record".camelize(:lower)        # => "activeRecord"
      "active_record/errors".camelize         # => "ActiveRecord::Errors"
      "active_record/errors".camelize(:lower) # => "activeRecord::Errors"

classify(table_name)

Create a class name from a plural table name like Rails does for table names to models. Note that this returns a string and not a Class. (To convert to an actual class follow `classify` with `constantize`.)

Examples:

      "egg_and_hams".classify # => "EggAndHam"
      "posts".classify        # => "Post"

Singular names are not handled correctly:

      "business".classify     # => "Busines"

constantize(camel_cased_word)

Tries to find a constant with the name specified in the argument string:

      "Module".constantize     # => Module
      "Test::Unit".constantize # => Test::Unit

The name is assumed to be the one of a top-level constant, no matter whether it starts with "::" or not. No lexical context is taken into account:

      C = 'outside'
      module M
        C = 'inside'
        C               # => 'inside'
        "C".constantize # => 'outside', same as ::C
      end

NameError is raised when the name is not in CamelCase or the constant is unknown.

dasherize(underscored_word)

Replaces underscores with dashes in the string.

Example:

      "puni_puni" # => "puni-puni"

demodulize(class_name_in_module)

Removes the module part from the expression in the string.

Examples:

      "ActiveRecord::CoreExtensions::String::Inflections".demodulize # => "Inflections"
      "Inflections".demodulize                                       # => "Inflections"

foreign_key(class_name, separate_class_name_and_id_with_underscore = true)

Creates a foreign key name from a class name. `separate_class_name_and_id_with_underscore` sets whether the method should put ‘_’ between the name and ‘id’.

Examples:

      "Message".foreign_key        # => "message_id"
      "Message".foreign_key(false) # => "messageid"
      "Admin::Post".foreign_key    # => "post_id"

humanize(lower_case_and_underscored_word)

Capitalizes the first word and turns underscores into spaces and strips a trailing "_id", if any. Like `titleize`, this is meant for creating pretty output.

Examples:

      "employee_salary" # => "Employee salary"
      "author_id"       # => "Author"

inflections() {|Inflections.instance| ...}

Yields a singleton instance of Inflector::Inflections so you can specify additional inflector rules.

Example:

      Inflector.inflections do |inflect|
        inflect.uncountable "rails"
      end

ordinalize(number)

Turns a number into an ordinal string used to denote the position in an ordered sequence such as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th.

Examples:

      ordinalize(1)     # => "1st"
      ordinalize(2)     # => "2nd"
      ordinalize(1002)  # => "1002nd"
      ordinalize(1003)  # => "1003rd"

pluralize(word)

Returns the plural form of the word in the string.

Examples:

      "post".pluralize             # => "posts"
      "octopus".pluralize          # => "octopi"
      "sheep".pluralize            # => "sheep"
      "words".pluralize            # => "words"
      "the blue mailman".pluralize # => "the blue mailmen"
      "CamelOctopus".pluralize     # => "CamelOctopi"

singularize(word)

The reverse of `pluralize`, returns the singular form of a word in a string.

Examples:

      "posts".singularize            # => "post"
      "octopi".singularize           # => "octopus"
      "sheep".singluarize            # => "sheep"
      "word".singluarize             # => "word"
      "the blue mailmen".singularize # => "the blue mailman"
      "CamelOctopi".singularize      # => "CamelOctopus"

tableize(class_name)

Create the name of a table like Rails does for models to table names. This method uses the `pluralize` method on the last word in the string.

Examples

      "RawScaledScorer".tableize # => "raw_scaled_scorers"
      "egg_and_ham".tableize     # => "egg_and_hams"
      "fancyCategory".tableize   # => "fancy_categories"

titleize(word)

Capitalizes all the words and replaces some characters in the string to create a nicer looking title. `titleize` is meant for creating pretty output. It is not used in the Rails internals.

`titleize` is also aliased as as `titlecase`.

Examples:

      "man from the boondocks".titleize # => "Man From The Boondocks"
      "x-men: the last stand".titleize  # => "X Men: The Last Stand"

underscore(camel_cased_word)

The reverse of `camelize`. Makes an underscored, lowercase form from the expression in the string.

Changes ’::’ to ’/’ to convert namespaces to paths.

Examples:

      "ActiveRecord".underscore         # => "active_record"
      "ActiveRecord::Errors".underscore # => active_record/errors

[Validate]