Need help rails routing using model attribute - ruby-on-rails

Question

I am currently learning rails and in the process of building my first rails project. I created a :restaurant model (along with other models - bookings and user) with several attributes which include :city. Here's my schema:
create_table "restaurants", force: :cascade do |t|
t.string "name"
t.string "city"
t.string "website"
t.string "phone_number"
t.integer "ratings"
t.integer "capacity"
t.datetime "created_at", precision: 6, null: false
t.datetime "updated_at", precision: 6, null: false
end
In my root '/' page, I am displaying the unique city values as a list with links. I was hoping that the user can browse restaurants by clicking on the city that they are in or planning to visit (ideally with a link '/restaurants/#{city}' and through that end up in a page with the list of restaurants in that city.
I have been trying to figure out how to do this currently my relevant routes look like this:
resources :restaurants do
resources :bookings
end
I tried creating :city as a nested resource but this ended up with url '/restaurants/:restaurant_id/:city' which isn't what I'm trying to achieve.
But most importantly, I cannot work out how the 'city' that the user clicked in the root page can lead to the page with all the restaurants in that city.
Any advice would be most helpful.
Thank you.

Answer 1

Routes are extremely flexible and give you a lot of power.
First option: I'd suggest the more traditional Rails way: Separate out your cities into their own model and relate them to a restaurant.
Something like this:
class City < ApplicationRecord
has_many :restaurants, inverse_of: :city
...
end
class Restaurant < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to: city, inverse_of: :restaurants
...
end
Then, I'd move your database around a bit:
create_table :cities do |t|
t.string :name, null: false
t.timestamps
end
create_table :restaurants do |t|
t.string :name
t.references :city
t.string :website
t.string :phone_number
t.integer :rating
t.integer :capacity
end
This will get you on the right track for nested routing like:
/cities/:city_id/restaurants
Second option is to wander off the RESTful path and play with the flexibility of routes:
(I'm suggesting getting away from /restaurants/:city and just use /:city, but the idea is the same)
# routes.rb
# warning! Put this towards the very end of your file. Even then, any URL you try to hit that fits
# this pattern will get sent to this controller action. e.g. "yoursite.com/badgers"
# you'll need to explore handling RecordNotFound and redirecting someplace else
get '/:city', to: 'restaraunts#by_city', as: 'restaurants_by_city'
Now in your Restaurants controller:
class RestaurantsController < ApplicationController
...
def by_city
city = params[:city] # this will be whatever is in the url
#restaurants = Restaurant.where(city: city)
# you'll need some error handling:
redirect to root_path if #restaurants.empty?
...
end
end