Rerouting model contents using to_param - ruby-on-rails

I am wanting to expand the URLs associated with the contents of a model called Product, at the moment, I can view a specific product by going to products/ID.
I would like to extend the product URL so it includes some more descriptive information, such as the product name.
I have previously been advised to adjust the to_param function (in Product.rb) as below:
def to_param
"#{id}-#{product_name.parameterize}"
end
However, this doesn't currently work. The URL associated with each product appears correctly when you hover over it / click it, but there is no matching product found. I get the error no match for ID=ID-specific-product-name
If i visit /products/id i can still successfully view the specific item
Can anyone guide me as to how I could generate this longer URL containing the product name (:product_name)?
EDIT
The show controller action in my controller is:
def show
#uniqueturbo = Uniqueturbo.find(params[:id])
respond_to do |format|
format.html # show.html.erb
format.xml { render :xml => #uniqueturbo }
end
end

If you're trying to make some SEO friendly urls
http://www.yourdomain.com/products/123123-My-Little-PonyBook
I think that the easiest way is to change the routes, like this
get '/products/:title/:id' => "products#show"
and then you'll get seo-friendly url's like:
http://www.yourdomain.com/products/My-Little-PonyBook/123123
To generate this url, create helper
def url_for_product(product)
"/products/#{product.title}/#{product.id}"
end
The other way is to leave the normal RESTful route, and reparse 'id' parameter, like:
def show
product_id = params[:id].split('_')[0] # :-)
# ...
end
and still you need the helper method, this time, sth like:
def url_for_product(product)
product_path(product) + "_#{product.title.tableize}"
end

Related

(Rails) How to get 'id' out of edit url

I have a model called studies.
After action redirect redirect_to edit_study_path(#new_study),
URL: http://localhost:3000/studies/2/edit.
Is there anyway to customize an url after passing id ?
For example, http://localhost:3000/study
(still going to the edit path, and still with the :id in the params)
I guess what you want is to edit the current study?
In this case, it's possible, using ressource instead of ressources in the routes.
Let's have an example:
#in routes.rb
resources :studies
resource :study
Both of them will by default link to the StudiesController and call the same actions (eg. edit in your case) but in two different routes
get "/studies/:id/edit" => "studies#edit"
get "/study/edit" => "studies#edit"
in your edit action, you should then setup to handle correctly the parameters:
def edit
#study = params[:id].nil? ? current_study : Study.find(params[:id])
end
Note you need a current_study method somewhere, and store the current_study in cookies/sessions to make it works.
Example:
# In application_controller.rb
def current_study
#current_study ||= Study.find_by(id: session[:current_study_id]) #using find_by doesn't raise exception if doesn't exists
end
def current_study= x
#current_study = x
session[:current_study_id] = x.id
end
#... And back to study controller
def create
#...
#Eg. setup current_study and go to edit after creation
if study.save
self.current_study = study
redirect_to study_edit_path #easy peesy
end
end
Happy coding,
Yacine.

How to write a duplicate record method in Ruby on Rails?

In my Rails app I have an invoices_controller.rb with these actions:
def new
#invoice = current_user.invoices.build(:project_id => params[:project_id])
#invoice.build_item(current_user)
#invoice.set_number(current_user)
end
def create
#invoice = current_user.invoices.build(params[:invoice])
if #invoice.save
flash[:success] = "Invoice created."
redirect_to edit_invoice_path(#invoice)
else
render :new
end
end
Essentially, the new method instantiates a new invoice record plus one associated item record.
Now, what sort of method do I need if I want to duplicate an existing invoice?
I am a big fan of Rails's RESTful approach, so I wonder if I should add a new method like
def duplicate
end
or if I can use the existing new method and pass in the values of the invoice to be duplicated there?
What is the best approach and what might that method look like?
Naturally, you can extend RESTful routes and controllers.
To be rally RESTful, it is important to look exactly, what you want.
i.e. if you want a new invoice and use an existing one as a kind of template, then it is comparable to a new action, and the verb should be GET (get the input form). As is it based on an existing invoice, it should reference that object. After that you would create the new invoice in the usual way.
So in you routes:
resources :invoices do
member do
get 'duplicate'
end
end
giving you a route duplicate_invoice GET /invoices/:id/duplicate(.format) invoices#duplicate
So in your view you can say
<%= link_to 'duplicate this', duplicate_invoice_path(#invoice) %>
and in your controller
def duplicate
template = Invoice.find(params[:id])
#invoice= template.duplicate # define in Invoice.duplicate how to create a dup
render action: 'new'
end
If I understand correctly your question you can:
resources :invoices do
collection do
get 'duplicate'
end
end
and with this you can do:
def duplicate
# #invoice = [get the invoice]
#invoice.clone_invoice
render 'edit' # or 'new', depends on your needs
end
clone_invoice could be a custom method which should have a invoice.clone call in your custom method.
If you question if you can use additional methods except REST, you absolutely can. Google, for example, encourage developers to use something, what they call "extended RESTful" on GoogleIO, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyu5ZxGUfgs
So use additional method duplicate, but don't forget about "Thin controllers, fat models" approach to incapsulate your duplicating logic inside model.

Ruby on Rails controller design

When I look at examples of Rails controllers, I usually see something like this:
class WidgetController < ActionController::Base
def new
#widget = Widget.new
end
def create
#widget = Widget.new(params[:id])
if #widget.save
redirect_to #widget
else
render 'new'
end
end
end
This works, but there's a couple problems:
Routes
If I add widgets to my routes.rb file:
Example::Application.routes.draw do
resources :widgets
end
GET /widgets/new will route to new and POST /widgets will route to create.
If the user enters incorrect information on the new widget page and submits it, their browser will display a URL with /widgets, but the new template will be rendered. If the user bookmarks the page and returns later or refreshes the page, the index action will be called instead of the new action, which isn't what the user expects. If there's no index action or if the user doesn't have permission to view it, the response will be a 404.
Duplication of code
As a contrived example, let's say I had some tricky logic in my new method:
def new
#widget = Widget.new
do_something_tricky()
end
Using the current approach, I'd duplicate that logic in new and create. I could call new from create, but then I'd have to modify new to check if #widget is defined:
def new
#widget ||= Widget.new
do_something_tricky()
end
Plus, this feels wrong because it reduces the orthogonality of the controller actions.
What to do?
So what's the Rails way of resolving this problem? Should I redirect to new instead of rendering the new template? Should I call new inside of create? Should I just live with it? Is there a better way?
I don't think this is a problem in "the rails way" and there is no builtin functionality to allow this without getting your hands dirty. What does a user expects when bookmarking a form they just submitted and had errors? Users don't know better, and they shouldn't bookmark a failed form.
I think redirecting to new_widget_path is the cleanest solution. Yet, you should keep the errors and display them on the form. For this I recommend you keep the params in session (which I expect to be smaller than a serialized Widget object).
def new
#widget = widget_from_session || Widget.new
end
def widget_from_session
Widget.new(session.delete(:widget_params)) if session[:widget_params].present?
end
private :widget_from_session
# Before the redirect
session[:widget_params] = params
The code is self explanatory, Widget.new will only be called when widget_from_session returns nil, this is when session[:widget_params] is present. Calling delete on a hash will return de deleted value and delete it from the original hash.
UPDATE Option 2
What about submitting the form using ajax? Your controller could benefit from:
respond_to :html, :json
...
def create
#widget = Widget.new params[:widget]
#widget
respond_with #widget, location: nil
end
Based on the response code (which is set by Rails: 201 Created or 422 Unprocessable Entity), you could show the errors (available in the body of the response when validations fail) or redirect the user to #widget
This is how StackOverflow does it: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/ask. They submit the form asynchronously.
In general, I think the Rails way of solving the problem would be to put the tricky method onto the model or as a helper method, so the controller stays "thin" and you don't have to make sure to add custom behavior to both #new and #create.
EDIT: For further reading, I'd recommend the "Rails AntiPatterns" book, as they go through a lot of these common design issues and give potential solutions.
you put do_something_tricky() in its own method and call it inside the create action (but only when you're rendering the new template, ie when validation fails).
As for the bookmark issue, I don't know a good way to prevent that but to modify the routes and set the create action to the new action but using POST
get '/users/new' => 'users#new'
post '/users/new' => 'users#create'
UPDATE: using resources
resources :platos, except: :create do
post '/new' => 'plates#create', on: :collection, as: :create
end
then you can use create_platos_path in your forms
You don't need to write same function in two action , use before_filter instead.
If you want to have "widget_new_url" after incorrect submission then in your form add url of new widget path something like :url => widget_new_path .
Rails takes the url from Form .
I have this problem before, so I use edit action instead.
Here is my code.
Routes:
resources :wines do
collection do
get :create_wine, as: :create_wine
end
end
Controller:
def create_wine
#wine = Wine.find_uncomplete_or_create_without_validation(current_user)
redirect_to edit_wine_path(#wine)
end
def edit
#wine = Wine.find(params[:id])
end
def update
#wine = Wine.find(params[:id])
if #wine.update_attributes(params[:wine])
redirect_to #wine, notice: "#{#wine.name} updated"
else
render :edit
end
end
Model:
def self.find_uncomplete_or_create_without_validation(user)
wine = user.wines.uncomplete.first || self.create_without_validation(user)
end
def self.create_without_validation(user)
wine = user.wines.build
wine.save(validate: false)
wine
end
View:
= simple_form_for #wine, html: { class: 'form-horizontal' } do |f|
= f.input :complete, as: :hidden, input_html: { value: 'true' }
What I did is create a new action 'create_wine' with get action.
If user request 'create_wine', it will create a new wine without validation and redirect to edit action with a update form for attributes and a hidden field for compele .
If user has create before but gave up saving the wine it will return the last uncompleted wine.
Which means whether use save it or not, the url will be the same to /wines/:id.
Not really good for RESTful design, but solve my problem. If there is any better solution please let me know.

Accessing specific pages in a controller/view on Rails App

I am trying to set individual Meta Descriptions and Titles to individual pages in a Ruby on Rails App. It was a previous developers App, that I have been given the task to edit. Also, I am new to Rails and Ruby.
The app has a controllers/pages_controller.rb where I was am able to set unique variables for #descriptionX and #title on some pages (mission and disclaimer), but not for others, such as pet_planning.
class PagesController < ApplicationController
def index
#title = params[:page].humanize
render params[:page]
end
def pet_planning
#descriptionX = 'pet planning'
#title = 'pet planning title'
render :pet_planning
end
def mission
#title = 'Our Mission Statement'
#descriptionX = 'Mission Description'
render :mission
end
def disclaimer
#title = 'Our Disclaimer'
render :disclaimer
end
end
I think that the render params[:page] is where I am getting lost. I'm not 100% sure of what this is doing, or how to use it.
I don't understand why I would be able to control the #title and #description of mission but not pet_planning when their views are both in the same /views/pages/ directory. And I can't seem to find any distinction between the two anywhere else in the app.
Also, tried to add = #title = 'Pet Planning' in the /views/pages/pet_planning.html.haml file. It does change the title, however it also displays at the top of the page content unexpectedly.
Any help would be appreciate. Thanks.
I'd recommend having a read of the ActionController guide, which explains how Rails turns a request from the user into a page to render.
Basically, when you send a request, for example
GET http://www.example.com/pages/?page=pet_planning
then Rails works out what to do with it using the router (the routing guide explains this in more detail). I would imagine that your app is set up so that the /pages route matches to the PagesController#index action. You can have a look in your config/routes.rb file and/or type rake routes at the terminal to see how your routes are set up.
The bit after the question mark in the request is the "query string", and Rails turns this into a params hash which, for my example above, would look like {:page => "pet_planning"}. Your index action looks at that to get the name of the page to render - that's what render params[:page] is doing.
I guess that the reason you can modify the variables for some of your pages and not others is that some of them have their own routes - /pages/mission uses the PagesController#mission action, for example - while certain pages are accessed via the index action using the page param - /pages/?page=pet_planning or possibly /pages/index.html?page=pet_planning.
Update: Your existing route
match 'practice_areas/:page' => 'pages#index', :as => :pages
could be broken up into
match 'practice_areas/pet_planning' => 'pages#pet_planning' :as => :pet_planning
# etc ...
which would correspond to a controller that looks like this
class PagesController < ApplicationController
def pet_planning
#title = "Pet planning!"
#description = "Whatever..."
end
end
Your suggestion is close, but because the route format is "controller_name#action_name", you would require multiple controllers that looked like this
class PetPlanningController < ApplicationController
def index
#title = "Pet planning!"
#description = "..."
end
end
and you would have to move your views from app/views/pages/pet_planning.html.haml to app/views/pet_planning/index.html.haml. So it's probably not quite what you want.
Note that there might be a better way to tackle the problem than splitting everything up into separate actions, if all you are doing differently in each one is customising the title and description. For example, you could use a hash that maps your page name to its corresponding information:
class PagesController < ApplicationController
PAGE_INFO = {
"pet_planning" => ["Pet planning!", "Whatever..."],
"other_page" => ["Title", "Description"],
# ...
}
def index
page_name = params[:page]
#title, #description = PAGE_INFO[page_name]
render page_name
end
end
The render calls in pet_planning, mission, and disclaimer do the same as default behavior, so those calls can be removed. They are telling rails to use the pages with the given file names. For the index method, this is rendering a page based on a parameter.
The title and description are likely set in the layout. Look in /views/layouts/application.html.haml or /views/layouts/pages.html.haml.

Ruby on Rails Scaffold - Modify Show Method

I am a beginner when it comes to Ruby on Rails, so I need a little bit of help. I started reading a basic tutorial recently, which was taught using Scaffolding. I made a "Clients" model: script/generate scaffold clients name:string ip_address:string speed:integer ... Inside the clients_controller.rb file, there is a method called show:
# GET /clients/1
# GET /clients/1.xml
def show
#client = Client.find(params[:id])
respond_to do |format|
format.html # show.html.erb
format.xml { render :xml => #client }
end
end
For queries, I'd go to localhost:3000/clients/{Enter the ID here}. Instead of searching with the ID are the argument, I'd like to search with another value, like ip_address or speed, so I thought all I would have to do is change :id to :ip_address in "#client = Client.find(params[:id])". However, that does not work, so would someone please tell me how I can achieve a search with another parameter. Thanks!
This doesn't work because of the way things are routed
When you do something like
map.resources :client (See config/routes.rb)
This happens automatically when you use scaffold.
It sets up routes based on the assumption you're using an id.
One of these routes is something like
map.connect 'clients/:id', :controller => 'client', :action => 'show'
So :id is passed as a parameter as part of the URL.
You shouldn't have the IP be the primary identifier unless they're distinct - and even then it kind of messes with the RESTful routing.
If you want to have the ability to search by IP, modify your index action for the clients
def index
if params[:ip].present?
#clients = Client.find_by_ip_address(params[:ip]);
else
#clients = Client.all
end
end
Then you can search by ip by going to clients?ip=###.###.###
This line in your routes.rb file
map.connect 'clients/:id', :controller => 'client', :action => 'show'
implies that when the dispatcher receives an URI in the format "clients/abcdxyz' with GET Method, it will redirect it to show method with the value "abcdxyz" available in params hash with key :id.
EDIT
Since you have used scaffold, the clients resource will be RESTful. That means that when you send a GET request to "/clients/:id' URI, you will be redirected to show page of that particular client.
In your controller code you can access it as
params[:id] # which will be "abcdxyz"
The find method that is generated by scaffold searches on the primary key i.e 'id' column. You need to change that statement to either
#client = Client.find_by_ip_address(params[:id]) #find_by_column_name
OR
#client = Client.find(:first, :conditions => [":ip_address = ?", params[:id]])
:-)

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