Hey, did you know that there's an option called --sandbox that you can append to console?

Yuuuup, you can run rails console --sandbox when you load up your console. What's it for? Simple -- to ensure that any changes you make to the database are rolled back on exit.

Why use this?

Well, what if you're going into your production box and need to poke around with the data. The site's live, y'know. It's great to be able to go into a production box, run rails c and not have to worry that you may have accidentally deleted an entry or updated a value. Think of it as an extra safety net. Here's what it'd look like.

$ RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails c --sandbox

Once in, you can do the usual CRUD actions, even run .save!, and not have to worry about how the actual production database is affected. Here's proof.

❯❯❯ RAILS_ENV=production rails c --sandbox
Loading production environment in sandbox (Rails 4.0.10)
Any modifications you make will be rolled back on exit
irb(main):001:0> User.first
=> nil
irb(main):002:0> u = User.create
=> #<User id: nil, name: nil, email: nil, created_at: nil, updated_at: nil, password_digest: nil, remember_token: nil, admin: false>
irb(main):003:0> u.name='risa'
=> "risa"
irb(main):004:0> u.email='test@example.com'
=> "test@example.com"
irb(main):005:0> u.password='password'
=> "password"
irb(main):006:0> u.password_confirmation='password'
=> "password"
irb(main):007:0> u
=> #<User id: nil, name: "risa", email: "test@example.com", created_at: nil, updated_at: nil, password_digest:    "$2a$10$qmgIZE5IqicXfOc6WxOb4.s7rVm4uLAciYJnAnvukJuu...", remember_token: nil, admin: false>
irb(main):008:0> u.save!
=> true
irb(main):009:0> User.first
=> #<User id: 1, name: "risa", email: "test@example.com", created_at: "2015-03-24 17:53:17", updated_at: "2015-03-24 17:53:17",     password_digest: "$2a$10$qmgIZE5IqicXfOc6WxOb4.s7rVm4uLAciYJnAnvukJuu...", remember_token:    "eb878de3cfc54eda3df1ea974ac6a49a35a52f47", admin: false>
irb(main):011:0> exit

❯❯❯ RAILS_ENV=production rails c --sandbox
Loading production environment in sandbox (Rails 4.0.10)
Any modifications you make will be rolled back on exit
irb(main):002:0> User.first
=> nil

BOOM. Sweet sweet success. No prod box will scare you from now on.

Level up +1

Questions? Comments? Hit me up at risaonrails !