1. Scaffolding method

Scaffolding method build a fundation to go further while 
developing a project. It is useful mainly when 
developing Rails applications dealing with a 
database.

2. Example:
The sulfur compounds contain sulfur atom. They include 
Hydrogen sulfide, Mercaptan (or Thiol), Sulfide, Disulfide, 
Thiophene, Benzothiophene, and many others.
We will set for them a database sulfurs
and a table properties.

The steps

1. Create the Rails Web Application: C:\ruby> rails sulfurs

2. Create its related database:
   mysql> create database sulfurs;
   Query OK, 1 row affected (0.05 sec)
   (grant and FLUSH PRIVILEGES)
   

3. Configure the related database: 
   Go to
   c:\ruby\sulfurs\config\database.yml 
   

4. Creating the related table "properties":
   mysql> USE sulfurs;
   Database changed
   mysql> CREATE TABLE properties(
   id INT(15) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
   ...
   );
   Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.13 sec)
   

5. Creating Model:
   Create a "Sulfur" model class. (Sulfur is capitalized 
   and used in its singular form according to Rails rules.
   The model holds data from the properties table in the 
   database. 
   
   C:\ruby\sulfurs> ruby script\generate model Sulfur
   
   That creates the empty file app/models/sulfur.rb 
   that will contain definitions for the Sulfur class.
   

6. Creating Controller:
   we will create sulfur controller (the same name 
   as for model) with actions to manipulate the sulfurs 
   in the database via the standard CRUD operations: create, 
   read, update, and delete.
   
   C:\ruby\sulfurs > ruby script\generate controller sulfur
   That creates app/controllers/sulfur_controller.rb file 
   that will contain definitions for the sulfurController class. 
   

7. Generated Scaffold Code:
   Issue the command line:
   C:\ruby\sulfurs>ruby script/generate scaffold sulfur
   That outputs:
         exists  app/models/
         exists  app/controllers/
         exists  app/helpers/
         create  app/views/sulfurs
         exists  app/views/layouts/
         exists  test/functional/
         exists  test/unit/
         create  app/views/sulfurs/index.html.erb
         create  app/views/sulfurs/show.html.erb
         create  app/views/sulfurs/new.html.erb
         create  app/views/sulfurs/edit.html.erb
         create  app/views/layouts/sulfurs.html.erb
         create  public/stylesheets/scaffold.css
     dependency  model
         exists    app/models/
         exists    test/unit/
         exists    test/fixtures/
      identical    app/models/sulfur.rb
      identical    test/unit/sulfur_test.rb
      identical    test/fixtures/sulfurs.yml
         exists    db/migrate
   
   C:\ruby\sulfurs>
   

The scaffold generator has created all the above file.
with some few lines of code

All the views methods (list, show, delete and create) are created 
by scaffold command and they are available in app/views/sulfurs 
created directory; that have to be copied and pasted to 
app/views/sulfur also created .

3. Remark:

This scaffold utility set new entries and provides with 
the definitions edit, view and delete to edit, view and destroy 
the current entries. In other word, It does the job; obviously, 
this is not the best way to follow if we are trying to learn.