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Saving The Address Book

8:14 with Jason Seifer

Saving

Documentation Links

Code Samples

require "./contact"
require "yaml"

class AddressBook
  attr_reader :contacts

  def initialize
    @contacts = []
    open()
  end

  def open
    if File.exist?("contacts.yml")
      @contacts = YAML.load_file("contacts.yml")
    end
  end

  def save
    File.open("contacts.yml", "w") do |file|
      file.write(contacts.to_yaml)
    end
  end

  def run
    loop do
      puts "Address Book"
      puts "a: Add Contact"
      puts "p: Print Address Book"
      puts "s: Search"
      puts "e: Exit"
      print "Enter your choice: "
      input = gets.chomp.downcase
      case input
      when 'a'
        add_contact
      when 'p'
        print_contact_list
      when 's'
        print "Search term: "
        search = gets.chomp
        find_by_name(search)
        find_by_phone_number(search)
        find_by_address(search)
      when 'e'
        save()
        break  
      end
      puts "\n"
    end
  end
  • 0:00

    Okay, now comes the fun part.

  • 0:02

    We're going to add the ability to save our address book to a file.

  • 0:08

    Now, this is gonna work in a couple different parts.

  • 0:12

    So for right now, let's just go ahead and write two methods, open.

  • 0:19

    And save.

  • 0:21

    Open and save are gonna be called at different points in the address book.

  • 0:27

    Now, we've got this run method which basically controls our entire program.

  • 0:31

    We could add contacts, print the address book, search through the contacts or exit.

  • 0:38

    So before we exit, what we're gonna do is call the save method.

  • 0:45

    What that's gonna do is save our contact list even though we haven't written

  • 0:50

    it yet.

  • 0:54

    And then, on the inverse of that, once we initialize the address book,

  • 1:00

    let’s go ahead and call the open method, so

  • 1:04

    that anything that we have saved, will be loaded in to our contacts.

  • 1:12

    Now, all we have to do is write these methods.

  • 1:16

    We’re going to be using a class from the standard library of Ruby, called YAML.

  • 1:21

    What YAML will do is save all of our Ruby objects into a text-based format.

  • 1:29

    Now, we're not gonna delve too far into YAML right now, but

  • 1:33

    I'm going to show you a couple of different pieces of documentation so

  • 1:38

    that we can see how YAML works.

  • 1:40

    Basically, we get this YAML class and

  • 1:45

    it can dump and load Ruby objects and

  • 1:49

    it serializes them into text in a certain way.

  • 1:55

    And then, we're going to write that text out to a file.

  • 2:00

    Now, YAML as a class is just an interface to another class,

  • 2:05

    which is where the methods that we'll be using come from.

  • 2:10

    We're gonna be using the load file and

  • 2:14

    two YAML methods, and then for writing out our files,

  • 2:20

    we're gonna be using the IO and file class.

  • 2:25

    We're gonna be using the open method on file which is alias for new.

  • 2:32

    Now this is all kind of a lot to take in, so let's go ahead and write the code and

  • 2:36

    then I will explain it.

  • 2:40

    So we'll write our save method first, and here's how it works.

  • 2:44

    We're gonna open a certain file, which is just gonna be called contacts.yml.

  • 2:48

    Then, we have to tell Ruby that we're opening it with the mode w for writing.

  • 3:00

    Then we write to this file the contents of our contacts

  • 3:05

    array and that's gonna save our file.

  • 3:12

    So what happens here is we're using this open method.

  • 3:14

    File.open is a method that takes an argument, which is the name of

  • 3:20

    the file as the first argument, and then the mode you want to access this file.

  • 3:27

    In this case, we're choosing right mode.

  • 3:30

    The other options that we could use are documented here in the documentation.

  • 3:34

    Could be read-only, read-write, write-only,

  • 3:39

    read-write, write-only and read-write, and this is only for

  • 3:44

    a pending or it depends where you want to start in the file.

  • 3:50

    Now we're doing this as write-only which means we're going to write the contact

  • 3:53

    list out each time we call save.

  • 3:58

    So let's go back here and just make sure that this works.

  • 4:06

    So first we'll add a contact, Jason Seifer, and then let's go ahead and exit.

  • 4:13

    Uh-oh, undefined method to_yaml, and why is that?

  • 4:19

    Well, it's because we have not required ymml.

  • 4:24

    It's part of the standard library,

  • 4:27

    all we have to do is require that library up here at the top of the file.

  • 4:35

    Clear my screen here.

  • 4:39

    And we'll try that one more time.

  • 4:44

    Add a contact, and then let's go ahead and exit.

  • 4:50

    Okay, so that worked.

  • 4:52

    Now here in the work space,

  • 4:53

    over on the left side in the side bar, go ahead and hit refresh.

  • 5:00

    When we do that, notice that way have a file called contacts.yml.

  • 5:06

    This is our address book program having written out contact.

  • 5:11

    Now in yml format, this dash right here means it's an array.

  • 5:17

    And it shows that it's a Ruby object of the contact class, and

  • 5:23

    phone numbers and addresses are an array.

  • 5:27

    So that looks good, we know that our contacts are being written, so

  • 5:31

    now let's implement this open method.

  • 5:36

    And first, we'll see if the file exists.

  • 5:45

    So if the file exists, we're going to assume that

  • 5:50

    we have contacts in there, so we can just replace

  • 5:55

    the contacts array with the contents of the YAML file,

  • 6:00

    and we do this by calling load_file.

  • 6:08

    On the YAML class, and

  • 6:10

    what that will do is parse everything in this file back into Ruby objects,

  • 6:15

    and replace the current internal contacts array with those contents.

  • 6:24

    So let me go back down here to the console, and clear the screen.

  • 6:33

    Now when I load the address book, let's go ahead and print it out and see if there is

  • 6:37

    anything in there, and this time the contact list has been printed.

  • 6:41

    So here we go, let's go ahead and

  • 6:43

    add another contact to make sure it is working.

  • 6:47

    And let's add a phone number this time,

  • 6:52

    and let's add an address as well.

  • 7:11

    Okay, so all of this seems to be working.

  • 7:14

    And now if we exit and go back over here and

  • 7:18

    check out our contacts file, we can see that the YAML is all working correctly.

  • 7:24

    It's loading up our contact and

  • 7:26

    our phone numbers, and everything seems to be working.

  • 7:30

    Now if we wanted to, we could add more things to this like the ability

  • 7:33

    to remove contacts, but for right now, things are looking pretty good.

  • 7:38

    And it's important to practice this stuff on your own, so if you'd like to,

  • 7:43

    go ahead and add the ability to remove contacts.

  • 7:45

    That would be great extra credit.

  • 7:48

    In this course, you've built a simple but effective contact list management program.

  • 7:53

    You've learned to use your own classes and objects, use loops and blocks and more.

  • 7:58

    Most importantly we've learned how to break things down and

  • 8:01

    add features to your program and think like a Ruby programmer.

  • 8:05

    Great job, but don't stop there.

  • 8:07

    Try to think about other things that you can add to the address book program, and

  • 8:11

    then practice on your own by doing it.

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