Understanding rails routing that include (=>) and (:as) - ruby-on-rails

While reading about rails routing I found routing that include =>. But I don't understnad what it means. Also I found some routing example with :as. It would be nice if someone explained a little bit about it. I have read rails guide but still I am not quite clear about them.
Please explain what this means
get 'customer_details' => "customers#details"
and
get 'customer_details' => "customers#details", :as => :customerdetails

Each time you define a route, you have to define a controller#action for that route:
#config/routes.rb
get :customer_details => "customers#details"
get :customer_details, to: "customers#details"
get :customer_details, controller: :customers, action: :details
The routing module provides URL rewriting in native Ruby. It's a way to redirect incoming requests to controllers and actions.
The following symbols are special:
:controller maps to your controller name
:action maps to an action with your controllers
Other names simply map to a parameter as in the case of :id.
Using => is simply a shortcut for the to: option...
When a pattern points to an internal route, the route's :action and :controller should be set in options or hash shorthand. Examples:
match 'photos/:id' => 'photos#show', via: :get
match 'photos/:id', to: 'photos#show', via: :get
match 'photos/:id', controller: 'photos', action: 'show', via: :get
In short, it's another way to pass the required "controller#action" arguments to the Rails router.
--
Of course, this is negated by using the resources directive, which sets the controller & actions implicitly:
#config/routes.rb
resources :customers, only: [], path: "" do
get :customer_details, on: :collection #-> url.com/customer_details
end
The routing middleware (ActionDispatch::Routing) takes inbound URL paths, and matches them against your defined routes -- sending the user to the appropriate controller / action.
The entire routing structure (even when you use link_to) depends on having the controller & action set for a route; especially true with a path helper.
Setting as: gives you the ability to explicitly define the name of the path, for example:
#config/routes.rb
get "search/:query", to: "application#search", as: :app_search
... the above will create the helper <%= app_search %>
Update
In response to your comment, you'll want to use either of the following:
#config/routes.rb
get "customers/details", to: "customers#details" #-> url.com/customers/details
- or -
resources :customers do
get :details, on: :collection #-> url.com/customers/details
end
If you're defining a single route, only use symbols if Ruby can interpret that data without any interpolation. For example get :details can be treated as get "details", however get "customers/details" cannot be treated as a symbol.

Related

Named routes inserting a . instead of a /

I've been having trouble with named routes in rails 4 (Named route for non resource nesting).
I've moved onto something else, but still struggling with the same problem of named routes for non resource urls.
This is my route from rake routes:
GET /messages/:id/report/:reply_token(.:format) messages#report
messages POST /messages(.:format) messages#create
and my routes.rb
resources :messages, only: [:create] do
member do
get 'report/:reply_token', :action => 'report'#, :as => :message
end
end
Because of the problem I had in my post linked at the top, I'm trying to get a url to the /messages/:id/report/:reply_token route by doing the following:
"#{messages_url(#message, :host => "localhost:3000")}/report/#{#message.reply_token}"
But it's giving me this:
http://localhost:3000/messages.110/report/6bBw22TdaRYcQ3iVzW1ZwA
Why is there a . between the 'messages' and the '110' (message_id)?
Instead of #message, I've also tried #message.id in the messages_url(). I've also tried this: report_message_path(message_id: #message.id, reply_token: #message.reply_token) but got the same error as in my question linked above. I've also tried message_url() instead but it gives undefined method 'message_url'.
You are mixing up routes. messages_url is to generate a URL for create action which does not have ID in its route. Rails assumes 110 is the format and uses the second route (which is named as messages)
messages POST /messages(.:format)
As a solution, name your route like this and also add show action
resources :messages, only: [:create,:show] do
member do
get 'report/:reply_token', :action => 'report' , :as => :custom_message
end
end
And,
custom_message_url(#message, :host => "localhost:3000")
More about naming routes here.
Answerd here already - Rails _path helper generating path with format not id

Rails Routing -- Adding Custom Route

I'm almost certain that someone has asked this question before, but I can't seem to hit on the right series of words to find it.
I have a resource, Games, with all of the normal resource-y paths. Create, Edit, etc.
I've created a new action within GamesController called json that I want to be able to access at mydomain.com/games/json but the routing keeps picking up 'json' as the ID and routing it to the 'show' action instead.
Presumably this is because of the default route:
match ':controller(/:action(/:id))'
I've tried a number of things, but no matter what I do it keeps routing to 'show.' I've been attempting to figure it out using this guide, but for someone that's pretty new to rails its quite a bit to take in and apply.
I'd like to say that for any controller /json would take you to the json action (instead of show with id 'json'), but I'd settle for having to specify it for every controller individually.
Any help is greatly appreciated. (Even if that's just pointing me to the already answered question.) In all cases I've been placing the route I'm attempting to create above the default route.
My routes:
root :to => 'home#index'
resources :events, :players, :sets, :matches, :characters, :videos, :games, :event_instances, :game_instances
resource :user_session
resource :account, :controller => "users"
resources :users
match '/login', :to => 'user_sessions#new', :as => 'login'
match '/logout', :to => 'user_sessions#destroy', :as => 'logout'
match '/register', :to => 'users#create', :as => 'register'
match '/games/json', :to => 'games#json', :as => 'gameList'
match ':controller(/:action(/:id))'
Ok so what you need to do is put your custom json route above your other resources routes and make it default like so:
get '/:controller/json(/:id)', action: 'json'
resources :events, :players, :sets, :matches, :characters, :videos, :games, :event_instances, :game_instances
...
Your confusion was linked to the way the routes are built and urls are parsed
Think of your routes.rb file as a set of consecutive filters to be applied to the url requested by the client.
If you put a default route above another it will catch all request that match the given pattern => this means that when you were adding all your resources routes above your json route, all urls matching the /#{resources}/:id pattern (and /games/json is one of them) were caught before they could reach the json custom route.
By putting your custom route above the others, you make it catch any request matching the pattern, that means in that case all requests with
/#{controller_name or resource_name)}/json(/:id)
NB:
I am not quite sure this is the best design pattern to use for your routes and I'd rather go with conventional REST routes with basic CRUD actions that would implement the respond_to pattern to answer specific json requests.
See docs for this: http://apidock.com/rails/ActionController/MimeResponds/InstanceMethods/respond_to
Adding such 'catch all' routes on top of all your resources may become risky when your app grows.
But you may have your reasons to go this way, in that case, I think my answer matches what you need.
resources :games do
collection do
get :json
end
end
if you also wanted to add an action that would take an :id path segment and return, say, json representation of a specific game, you'd do that with
resources :games do
collection do
get :json
end
member do
get :json
end
end
I'd add that when I was brand new to Rails (less than 1.5 years ago), the routing dsl was really hard for me to get my head around for some reason. But it's worth studying that guide, despite the fact that it's a bit overwhelming at first. Otherwise you'll end up with a bunch of match '/route/to/somewhere' => 'controller#action', :as => :some_helper, which ends up being a pain to read & maintain and will make it harder to have a consistent "grammar" for your urls.
Edit: looking at your now-posted routes file, the problem is that you declare the games/json route after the resources :games declaration. Route-matching precedence proceeds from the top of the file down, so the resourceful route for games matches first, and the specific route declared later is never checked. If you use the syntax above to make your json route a part of the resource declaration, this won't happen.

How can I guess the route helpers that are created with match in Rails?

I have created a route in the routes.rb file like this:
match ':controller/:action/:id'
I tried invoking add_posts_path() and add_post_path() from my view and in both cases I got similar error messages like this one:
undefined method `add_post_path' for ...
I have tried declaring my match route both before and after the resources :posts declaration.
Are any route helpers created for such a route? I am unsure what helper methods can be used with such a match rule.
You can name routes with :as parameter
match '/foo/bar', to: 'foo#bar', as: 'foo_bar'
and then use foo_bar_path in your view
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html#naming-routes
If you have resources :posts, you have a helper new_post_path to add new posts. Run rake routes to see your apps routes.
add_post_path does't follow Rails routes convention for resources and if you need it, must add a custom method:
resources :posts do
get :add, :on => :collection
end
You can read more about this in this Rails guide.
When you define match ':controller/:action/:id', you set the format of your app's urls and their params, but this do not magically will define routes helpers.

RESTful route overriden by named route

When defining a resources in routes.rb in Rails, I have the following problem: My resource supports the standard CRUD operations and has a custom function/route, which allows filtering. Now this custom routes matches the edit route and jumps in before the actual RESTful route.
Is there a way to prioritize the RESTful routes so that they match first?
resources :items do
get ':category(/:level)', :action => :filter, :on => :collection, :as => 'filter'
end
You should just set a simple get route ( if it is a GET request )
get 'filter', :to => "items#filter"
If you have any problems there are always RoR Guides :)
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html

Rails 3 route appends _index to route name

I am migrating a Rails 2.3.8 version to Rails 3.0 and so ive rewritten my routes file. When i list the routes using rake routes, i see some route names have _index appended to them. I cant figure out why this is.
Relevant routes:
Rails 2.3.8:
map.namespace "tracker", :path_prefix => "" do |planner|
planner.resources :planner, :collection => {:step1 => :get,
:add => :get,
:unsubscribe => [:get, :post] }
end
Rails 3.0 route:
namespace "tracker", :path => "" do
resources :planner do
collection do
get :step1
get :add
get :unsubscribe
post :unsubscribe
end
end
end
Output from rake routes
Rails 2.3.8
step1_tracker_planner GET /planner/step1(.:format)
add_tracker_planner GET /planner/add(.:format)
unsubscribe_tracker_planner GET /planner/unsubscribe(.:format)
POST /planner/unsubscribe(.:format)
Rails 3.0
step1_tracker_planner_index GET /planner/step1(.:format)
add_tracker_planner_index GET /planner/add(.:format)
unsubscribe_tracker_planner_index GET /planner/unsubscribe(.:format)
POST /planner/unsubscribe(.:format)
Any ideas as to why this _index is being added would be much appreciated.
It is because your resource is named :planner instead of :planners that Rails decided to add the _index to any collection nested underneath. My guess it is there for readability.
The action named in the collection normally translates to a verb, so I can see why this makes sense. Take the typical photos resource example given in the routing docs:
resources :photos do
collection do
get 'search'
end
end
search_photos GET /photos/search(.:format)
But if instead we called the resources 'photo'...
resources :photo do
collection do
get 'search'
end
end
search_photo_index GET /photo/search(.:format)
In the first case, you search the "photos", and in the second case you search the "photo index".
You should be using either resource :planner either resources :planners depending on what you need. To learn about singular resource and it differences check out Rails Guides.
Following on from Semyon Perepelitsa's response, note that resource :planner expects the controller's name is PlannersController, whereas resources :planners expects PlannerController.
If you don't want to rename your controller when changing from resources to resource, you can override the default by specifying resource :planner, controller: :planner.

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