Add Define Conditional Routing Logic In Routes File as a Rails TIL

README.md

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ working across different projects via [VisualMode](https://www.visualmode.dev/).
 
 For a steady stream of TILs, [sign up for my newsletter](https://visualmode.kit.com/newsletter).
 
-_1798 TILs and counting..._
+_1800 TILs and counting..._
 
 See some of the other learning resources I work on:
 
@@ -1079,6 +1079,7 @@ If you've learned something here, support my efforts writing daily TILs by
 - [Load A File Into The Python REPL](python/load-a-file-into-the-python-repl.md)
 - [Look Inside Pytest tmp_path](python/look-inside-pytest-tmp-path.md)
 - [Make Dataclass Sortable By Specific Field](python/make-dataclass-sortable-by-specific-field.md)
+- [Make Secure Temp File For Atomic Write](python/make-secure-temp-file-for-atomic-write.md)
 - [Override The Boolean Context Of A Class](python/override-the-boolean-context-of-a-class.md)
 - [Parse Relative Time To datetime Object](python/parse-relative-time-to-datetime-object.md)
 - [Reclassify Certain Packages As Dev Dependencies](python/reclassify-certain-packages-as-dev-dependencies.md)
@@ -1147,6 +1148,7 @@ If you've learned something here, support my efforts writing daily TILs by
 - [Customize Paths And Helpers For Devise Routes](rails/customize-paths-and-helpers-for-devise-routes.md)
 - [Customize Template For New Schema Migration](rails/customize-template-for-new-schema-migration.md)
 - [Customize The Path Of A Resource Route](rails/customize-the-path-of-a-resource-route.md)
+- [Define Conditional Routing Logic In Routes File](rails/define-conditional-routing-logic-in-routes-file.md)
 - [Define The Root Path For The App](rails/define-the-root-path-for-the-app.md)
 - [Delete Paranoid Records](rails/delete-paranoid-records.md)
 - [Demodulize A Class Name](rails/demodulize-a-class-name.md)

python/make-secure-temp-file-for-atomic-write.md

@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+# Make Secure Temp File For Atomic Write
+
+Two types of failure modes that can occur while writing to a shared file on the
+file system are 1) a corrupted file due to a crash mid-write and 2) another
+process reading a partial file mid-write.
+
+One way I've handled this in [`py-vmt`](https://github.com/jbranchaud/py-vmt) is
+to perform the write operations on a secure temp file and then use the OS-level
+atomic `rename` operation. I do this by [creating a
+`contextmanager`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/contextlib.html#contextlib.contextmanager)
+that uses
+[`tempfile.mkstemp`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/tempfile.html#tempfile.mkstemp)
+and [`os.replace`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.html#os.replace).
+
+Here is what the `contextmanager` looks like:
+
+```python
+from contextlib import contextmanager
+from pathlib import Path
+import os, tempfile
+
+@contextmanager
+def atomic_write(path: Path):
+    # write to a tmp file in the same directory, then atomically swap it
+    fd, temp_file_path = tempfile.mkstemp(dir=path.parent, suffix=".tmp")
+    try:
+        with os.fdopen(fd, "w") as file:
+            yield file
+        os.replace(temp_file_path, path)
+    except BaseException:
+        os.unlink(temp_file_path)
+        raise
+```
+
+This explicitly creates a secure temp file in the same directory as the given
+path with `.tmp` as the suffix. I then open the file descriptor using the
+`os.fdopen` context manager (which will manage closing the file descriptor for
+me). The `@contextmanager` decorator plus the `yield file` are what allow this
+to be used as a `with` block. Once any file operations are done, then I use
+`os.replace` to atomically swap out the original file with the temp file.
+
+Here is how I use it to write updates to JSON data files:
+
+```python
+def write_active_session(self, session: Session) -> None:
+    with atomic_write(self.active_session_file) as file:
+        json.dump(session.marshal(), file)
+```

rails/define-conditional-routing-logic-in-routes-file.md

@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+# Define Conditional Routing Logic In Routes File
+
+I ran into a situation recently where I needed to intercept the behavior a
+common public-facing route in an app. Broadly, the route is for company specific
+rental pages with query parameters that correspond to their available inventory.
+
+What I needed was a way to display a demo version of that rental page ignoring
+everything else about how the request would otherwise be processed, validated,
+and rendered.
+
+Instead of introducing a bunch of weird conditional logic into this already
+complex rental controller, I was able to intercept the request at the routing
+layer when `demo=true` is set and send it to a different controller.
+
+Here is what that section of `config/routes.rb` looks like:
+
+```ruby
+get "rentals/new", to: "rental_demos#show",
+  as: :rental_demo,
+  constraints: ->(request) { request.params[:demo] == "true" }
+
+resources :rentals, only: %i[new create] do
+  # ...
+end
+```
+
+This specifies a `constraint` on the `get` handler matching for a given request.
+If the constraint isn't met, then the route handling logic proceeds where it
+will instead find a match with the original new rentals resource routing.
+
+Now I can reference a version of this URL that includes `demo=true` as a way of
+having an always-available realistic-looking version of the rental page even if
+one of these companies doesn't actively have available inventory.
+
+Those requests will get intercepted by the first matching route handler which
+will send them to the `RentalDemosController` instead of the
+`RentalsController`.