Building REST APIs with Ruby on Rails

Rails API Setup

Ruby on Rails provides convention over configuration, making API development fast and efficient.

Creating Rails API

# Create new Rails API
rails new my_api --api

# Generate scaffold
rails generate scaffold User name:string email:string

# Run migrations
rails db:migrate

Controller Example

class Api::V1::UsersController < ApplicationController
    def index
        @users = User.all
        render json: @users
    end
    
    def create
        @user = User.new(user_params)
        if @user.save
            render json: @user, status: :created
        else
            render json: @user.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity
        end
    end
    
    private
    
    def user_params
        params.require(:user).permit(:name, :email)
    end
end

Best Practices

• Use API versioning
• Use serializers for JSON responses
• Implement pagination
• Use strong parameters
• Handle errors gracefully