I have a controller show action which does some stuff and renders a view but due to some custom routing, I need a totally different action in a totally different controller to perform the same stuff and render the same view.
I don't really wish to duplicate the code. Is there somewhere I can put it and call it from both locations?
Edit:
I basically need to run the following from Collection#Show AND also from Gallery#SplitUrl:
#collection = Collection.find_by_id(params[:id])
if #collection.has_children?
#collections = #collection.children
else
redirect_to [#collection, :albums]
end
I cannot just redirect_to Collection#Show at the end of Gallery#SplitUrl as the redirect causes my custom URL's to be lost as it's a new request.
You could put the view content into a partial (/app/views/home/_example.html.erb) and then use the render "example" command in the HomeController.
The "some stuff" code you talk about could be put into a helper file /app/helpers/... to save you from duplicating code in the two separate controllers although it could depend on what the code is trying to do in the first place.
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/layouts_and_rendering.html
This might provide more information on the subject in general.
I think the simplest approach would be to add a route definition for your new url and map that to your existing controller's action.
Something like follows:
# config/routes.rb
# Existing resource
resources :foos
# The resource in question
resources :bars do
get :show, controller: 'foos', action: 'show', as: bar_foo_common_show
end
Note that this will give you /bar/:id, where id represents a bar resource. So in your foo#show action, your finder needs to be executed on appropriate class. This is when a few lines of hacky codes get added, for e.g. checking for request referer.
I think moving the common code to a function in possibly application_controller and calling that function from both show action would be cleaner approach, but based on my understanding you already have a similar scenario except for the common code in application_controller, and would like to try out a different approach!
Related
I am having a little trouble understanding what config/routes actually routes to. For example lets say I started a brand new project and generated a Users controller and edited my config/routes.rb to look like this:
config/routes.rb
SampleApp::Application.routes.draw do
match '/signup', to: 'users#new'
end
I start the server and as expected, it says I don't have a "new" action in my Users controller. I create one:
users_controller.rb
class UsersController < ApplicationController
def new
end
I refresh the page and as expected it tells me I need a users/new template. So my question is: do my view templates always have to be the same as the controller and action names in "(controller name)/(action name)" format (in this case users/new.html.erb)? Is it not possible to name my template something random (e.g. users/rubyonrailsmeetup.html.erb instead of users/new.html.erb) if have a controller action linked to one of the site's functions?
Also, does adding "resources :users" to config/routes.rb by default match the view template file names with the behavior I mentioned above so that views must be named after their "controller/action" names?
Sorry for the bother, I'm just trying to figure out what's part of Rails' magic and what isn't.
Rails attempts to render the template with the same name as the action by default, if no other render or redirect is invoked in the controller action. Basically, there's an implicit render :action at the end of every controller action.
But you can override this easily enough by adding an explicit render, e.g.,
render :rubyonrailsmeetup
Edit for clarity: this call to render goes in the controller code, not in config/routes
do my view templates always have to be the same as the controller and action names in "(controller name)/(action name)" format
These are defaults, you can render any view from the action by giving render :view_file_rel_path at the end of the action
does adding "resources :users" to config/routes.rb by default match the view template file names
Anything added in routes.rb is directly related upto controllers only, i.e. it matches the request and maps it to the controller/action. Logic of view comes only inside the action code
I can't seem to figure out how to get my routes setup properly.
In my app, I have a view that lets site owners update their address information. The new and create actions are part of the signup process and are located in the signups_controller. The edit and update actions are in the settings_controller.
When the user goes into the settings area, he/she sees only the edit form. When filled out, the user is then returned to the same form with a flash message, or error message. Here is what the controller looks like:
class SettingsController < ApplicationController
def edit
#account = current_account
#account.companies.first
#account.companies.first.addresses.first
#account.companies.first.phones.first
end
def update
#account = current_account
if #account.update_attributes(params[:account])
redirect_to edit_setting_path
flash[:notice] = "Success!"
else
render :edit
end
end
end
In my routes, I simply have:
resources :settings
The link to this area of the site is a basic RESTful named linke, with the parameter options:
edit_setting_path(:id => current_account.id)
When the user arrives to this page, they see the following URL:
http://domainname.com/settings/1/edit
When they submit the form and get errors, the URL changes to:
http://domainname.com/settings/1
Why is the URL changing -- I'd rather it not? Is there a way to make it stay the same as the initial edit view? I've tried doing a redirect on a failed update, but then I don't get the error messages.
Any ideas?
To answer your "why" question: The URL is changing because it's reflecting the URL of the failed request - which in this case is a PUT request to that URL (/settings/1). You've submitted the form and the submission of that form (correctly) points to that URL. This is a result of the RESTful routes that the helper gives you. Since the logic in your action, falls through to the render :action, there is no redirect and the form simply re-renders on the page using the same data available in this action (which is why you can see the errors).
If you want to redirect back to the edit page, yes, you will lose the errors that have been set in the #account instance variable since the redirect will reset (re-query for) the account.
You could add a route that matches a PUT to /settings/1/edit and point it to your update action and change your form etc. In short, I wouldn't recommend this, but it should work.
completely untested but attemptable:
routes.rb
put "/settings/:id/edit", :to=>"settings#update", :as=>"update_setting"
resources :settings, :except=>:update
your form would also have to submit to the update_setting_path (which also means it's not reusable for a new object... ew)
First you should read up on The Rails Guides for Routing. They will help a lot to understand why its working like that.
Secondly, to accomplish what you are trying to do, you will need to add manual routes via the match call. You'll need something like this.
match '/settings/:id/edit' => "settings#edit"
This might be a slightly odd question, but I was wondering if anyone know a Rails shortcut/system variable or something which would allow me to keep track of which controller is serving a page and which model is called by that controller. Obviously I am building the app so I know, but I wanted to make a more general plugin that would able to get this data retroactively without manually going through it.
Is there any simple shortcut for this?
The controller and action are defined in params as params[:controller] and params[:action] but there is no placeholder for "the model" as a controller method may create many instances of models.
You may want to create some kind of helper method to assist if you want:
def request_controller
params[:controller]
end
def request_action
params[:action]
end
def request_model
#request_model
end
def request_model=(value)
#request_model = value
end
You would have to explicitly set the model when you load it when servicing a request:
#user = User.find(params[:id])
self.request_model = #user
There are a number of ways that I know of:
First you can do rake routes and check out the list of routes.
Second you could put <%= "#{controller_name}/#{action_name}" %> in your application.html.erb and look at the view to see what it says. if you put it at the extreme bottom you'll always get that information at the bottom of the page.
The controller can be accessed through the params hash: params[:controller]. There isn't really a way to get the model used by a controller though, because there is no necessary correlation between any controller and any model. If you have an instance of the model, you could check object.class to get the model's class name.
I feel like this should be an easy thing to figure out, but I'm stumped.
I have a value in a Project's instance variable called ID. I want to pass that value to a new Photos page to associate each photo that is created with that specific project, but I don't want the Project's ID to show up in the visible query string.
I've tried using link_to and button_to, but (I suspect) since I'm using "resources :photos" in my routes, all of the requests that come to photo#new are being interpreted as GET instead of POST.
Helllllllllllllllp!
Thanks to anyone that can give me some insight, I'v been killing myself over this for the past hour or two already.
--Mark
The usual way to do this in Rails is to create a route that matches urls like this: /projects/4/photos/new. Doing something else is up to you, but Rails makes it really easy to do stuff like this. See more on routes in Rails 3.
Your entry in routes.rb should look something like this:
resources :projects do
resources :photos
end
Then in app/controllers/photos_controller.rb you'd have this for the "New Photo" form page:
def new
#project = Project.find_by_id(params[:project_id])
end
and this for the action that the form in app/views/photos/new.html.erb submits to:
def create
#project = Project.find_by_id(params[:project_id])
#photo = #project.photos.create(params[:photo])
end
Of course you'll want to have error handling and validation in here, but this is the gist of it. And remember, use GET for idempotent (non state-changing) actions (e.g. GET /projects/4/photos), POST for creating a new thing (e.g. POST /projects/4/photos), and PUT for updating an existing thing (e.g. PUT /projects/4/photos/8).
I am building my first app with ROR and stumbled upon a couple of problems due to my understanding of the MVC
I have a page to add a new item, and this works fine, rails magically hooks it up to the items controller and somehow by magic it knows to look in the method 'new' as the page is called new.
But this layer is confusing me, as i need to now create a different version of new, same functionality but with a different look so to use a different layout to application.html.erb
So i attempt to create a copy of new.html.erb and create bookmarklet.html.erb - both contain exactly the same code: a link to a form. but of course bookmarklet will error on me because it does not have that link in the controller - how do i 'wire' up bookmarklet so that i can call the new method and so that it can behave in a similar way to the identical new.html.erb
Also, how can i tell the new bookmarklet.html.erb to ignore the application.html.erb and get its layout from another file?
thanks in advance
The magic happens in the routes. Rails uses something called RESTful routes, which is taking HTTP verbs and assigning standard actions to it. the new action is a GET request in HTTP speak, and if you are using scaffolding or following REST, will have the ruby call to build a new object in the controller, as an instance variable so you can use it in your view.
You have to tell rails routes that you want to BREAK this arrangement and to let /items/bookmarklet be used in the controller.
In your routes.rb file replace resources :items with
resources items do
member do
get 'bookmarklet'
end
end
In your controller put:
def bookmarklet
#item = Item.new
render :template => "bookmarklet", :layout => "different_layout" # or you can put this on the top of the controller, which is my style, but whatevs.
end
You should look into partials, if you are doing this as they clean up your code immensely.
A better way to think of things is to start with the controller instead of the view html.erb files. So each public method in your controller is effectively a page or action in the site. When you need a new action or page, add the method to the controller first. Then create the relevant view files.
So in your controller you'll need something like:
def bookmarklet
#item = Item.new(params[:item])
#item.save
render :template => "items/bookmarklet.html.erb", :layout => "different_layout.html.erb"
end
Normally you don't need to call render manually in the controller, but since you want a different layout than the default you need to specify it using render.