Trying to create a method in rails controller - ruby-on-rails

I'm still trying to get the hang of rails and i'm trying to create a simple app with a form where i can enter the data and then submit it and it will be stored in the db. I got this very simple by starting a new project and then running:
$ rails generate scaffold RSVP firstName:string lastName:string
Now i want to redirect to a thank you page after adding a new record via the form.
I've manually added the method below to my rsvps_controller.rb file:
# GET /rsvps/thank_you
def thank_you
respond_to do |format|
format.html # thank_you.html.erb
format.json { render json: #rsvps }
end
end
This line is in my routes file:
resources :rsvps
My question is, when i run rake routes, i don't see a route for my thank_you method. Shouldn't my :rsvps resource pick up my thank_you route and how does the routes know which controller method are which http calls(get, post, put, etc)?

In order to get a route that will hit that action in your controller you should have in your routes.rb file something like:
resources :rsvps do
member { get :thank_you }
end
or
resources :rsvps do
collection { get :thank_you }
end
it depends for if you want to access the resource you've just created or not.
You can take a look # http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html it should help you understating the routing mechanism better.

Adding on to what wlad said, the resources :rsvps things in your routes.rb file creates a set of default routes that are going to be needed by most models. Things like index, new, create, or show. The reason your thank_you action isn't showing up in rake routes is because thank_you isn't one of the actions that were so common that they needed to be included out of the box without extra code.

If you are going to need to load a rsvp model on the thank you page to display any data in that model then you will need to use a member route. The :id in the route will be there because this is a resources member route and has to be associated with a particular resource. There has to be something in the url to know what to load.
resources :rsvps do
member { get :thank_you } #GET /rsvps/:id/thank_you(.:format)
end
If you just want a generic route that points to that controller action then you can use something like this:
match "/rsvps/thank_you" => "rsvps#thank_you", as: "rsvp_thank_you"

You can add more actions to any controller but rails will not treat this functions as actions unless you specify them in routes file. It will be treated as just another function in controller class created by user.
so if you want to add the thank_you function as action you need to add this to routes file.
There are multiple ways of doing so as others have explained in their answers.
adding-more-restful-actions
Using member and collection inside resources.
Use member when you want the function to be used only with the some model object.
eg: preview for photo id 1
GET /photos/:id/preview
In our example you member if you want such route and functionality.
GET /rsvps/:id/thank_you
Note :id in params is needed when you specify it as a member action.
resources :rsvps do
member do
get :thank_you #GET /rsvps/:id/thank_you(.:format)
end
end
Use collection if you want to call the action directly like
GET /rsvps/thank_you(.:format)
in resources
resources :rsvps do
collection do
get :thank_you #GET /rsvps/thank_you(.:format)
end
end
You need to specify the type of action (GET|POST) while adding it to routes.
In our example thank_you has been specified as a GET action. You can choose either.
You can create you own preety_urls or non restful routes using match.
(This will also require to have the action defined in resources block).
check out more on match here http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html#non-resourceful-routes
I suggest you to go through this awesome documentation created by the rails team.(once more ;) ) http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html
Cheers.

As you have said you just want to show a thank you page for each rsvp so a member route should be used. like this
resources :rsvps do
member get :thank_you
end
You should use collection of thank_you when you want to show all or some specific collection of thank_you.
when you include this and run rake routes again you will see the new http action there.

Related

How are resources connected to controllers without a Model

I am writing a basic application that scrapes data. I have the following in my routes.rb.
Rails.application.routes.draw do
constraints subdomain: 'api' do
namespace :api, path: '/' do
resources :apps, :only => :show
end
end
In controllers I have something like this although I am not sure how are resources connected to Controller.
class AppsController < ApplicationController
def show
puts "this works"
respond_to do |format|
format.json { render json: #user }
end
end
def apps
puts "my app"
end
end
Also, I dont have a Model. Does that mean that in my resources :apps calls a method in AppsController called apps?
If I wanted it t call apps then how's it possible ?
how does a controller in rails know what route does it belong to
I am trying to add a GET /apps?filter=5 that returns my scraped data in the form of JSON and with filter as parameter to that it means that return 5 JSON objects to me
#config/routes.rb
constraints subdomain: 'api' do
namespace :api, path: '/' do
get :apps, to: "apps#apps", on: :collection #-> api.url.com/apps
end
end
A much more coherent way to do it would be...
#config/routes.rb
constraints subdomain: 'api' do
namespace :api, path: '/' do
resources :apps #-> api.url.com/apps -> apps#index
end
end
I think you're getting confused with how Rails works, especially with your data.
I post this all the time, maybe it will help you:
As you can see, your request is not tied to a specific "model", nor is a controller bound to it either. I'll explain the importance of the MVC (Model View Controller) aspect of rails in a minute.
Your thought process is that each request / resource has to have a corresponding model / dataset to pull from. Strictly, this is not the case, although many would believe it to be.
Remember that Rails is just an application framework - it has to work with all the same protocols & restrictions as the other frameworks & languages out there.
When you send a request to Rails (through your browser URL), it takes that request, and matches it to the appropriate controller. This controller action will then pull data from your model (if you've set it up like that), render the view with that data, and return the processed HTML to the browser.
Thus, you don't have to have a model bound to a particular controller action, or anything. You just need to make sure your controllers & views are mapped accordingly.
OOP
I think the part you're getting hooked up on is the object orientated nature of Ruby / Rails.
Although every part of the Rails framework is meant to work with objects, this only applies on a request-basis.
For example, whilst it's typically recommended to keep your controllers resourceful, you don't have to adhere to that methodology if you don't want to. Many newbies don't know the difference.
Thus, when you use the following:
#config/routes.rb
constraints subdomain: 'api' do
namespace :api, path: '/' do
resources :apps, only: :show #-> api.url.com/:id -> apps#show
end
end
... what you're denoting is a controller bound by its resourceful nature. This would typically be expected to use model data, but it's not essential...
In controllers I have something like this although I am not sure how
are resources connected to Controller.
Rails.application.routes.draw provides a DSL which hooks into Rack (the interface between the HTTP server and Rails). It generates rules for where to route the response from Rack.
The DSL is provides has a lot of ways to do the same things. In this example, the resources :apps, :only => :show line basically says you want to generate all of the REST verbs for the AppsController, but you only want the :show verb, so the router will only generate a route to AppsController#show. Note that you can run rake routes to get a list of your routes.
Also, I dont have a Model. Does that mean that in my resources :apps
calls a method in AppsController called apps? If I wanted it t call
apps then how's it possible ?
Models are totally separate abstractions. Once the code reaches your controller you are in plain Ruby land until you return out of that controller action. Models are simply plain Ruby objects with the ability to talk to the database.
In your code if you wanted to call apps from the show method (or action) then you can just call it from there since it's in the same scope.
how does a controller in rails know that ok that is my route. In this case, apps
I'm not sure I understand this question, could you elaborate?
I am trying to add a GET /apps?filter=5 that returns my scraped data in the form of JSON and with filter as parameter to that it means
that return 5 JSON objects to me
For one, you'll need to add a route for /apps. There are several ways you can do this. Here's one approach. I'm going to call it index instead of apps since that's more conventional:
# config/routes.rb
get '/apps' => 'apps#index'
# app/controllers/apps_controller.rb
class AppsController < ApplicationController
respond_to :json
def index
limit = params[:filter].to_i
#users = User.first(limit) # Implement this however you wish
respond_with(#users)
end
end
My syntax might be a little off here with the respond_to and respond_with, but it should explain how the controller routes
Routing simply maps URLs to a controller/action, the existence of a model with the same name does not matter.
To get to the apps action that you defined in the AppsController you need to define a route that maps to apps#apps < This syntax means AppsController, apps action.
An example of a route that would map to the AppsController apps action:
get '/apps', to: "apps#apps"
This is a weird example. It's not conventional to have a def apps action inside AppsController, what exactly are you trying to accomplish with this action?
If you want a rest call to /apps that returns a JSON list of apps, then this all you need to do.
router
resources :apps, only: [:index]
controller
class AppsController < ActionController::Base
def index
puts "This is the index route in AppsController"
end
end
In the router, when you specify resource :apps, only: [:index]. This routes the request GET /apps to AppsController#index

The action 'index' could not be found for Controller

I am trying to make a controller with one action and when i try and go to the localhost:3000/controllername/action i get this error:
The action 'show' could not be found for LearnController
Here is my controller:
class LearnController < ApplicationController
def more
end
end
and in routes i do this:
resources :learn
I know that resources creates all the show, edit, index and all that but how do I make it so only the actions i create are created in the routes?
As you mention, resources :learn will create a bunch of routes according to the resourceful convention.
If you don't want those, don't use resources in your config/routes.rb file. Instead, use get, match, and friends to define your routes manually. E.g.
get 'learn/more'

Ruby on Rails : add a new route

I'm new with RoR so this is a newbie question:
if I have a controller users_controller.rb and I add a method foo, shouldn't it create this route?
http://www.localhost:3000/users/foo
because when I did that, I got this error:
Couldn't find User with id=foo
I of course added a view foo.html.erb
EDIT:
I added to routes.rb this code but I get the same error:
resources :users do
get "signup"
end
This doesn't work automatically in rails 3. You'll need to add
resource :users do
get "foo"
end
to your routes.rb
You'll definitely want to have a look at http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html, it explains routing pretty well.
Rails is directing you to the show controller and thinks that you're providing foo as :id param to the show action.
You need to set a route that will be dispatched prior to being matched as /users/:id in users#show
You can accomplish this by modifying config/routes.rb by adding the following to replace your existing resource describing :users
resource :users do
get "foo"
end
Just to add to the other answers, in earlier versions of Rails there used to be a default route
match ':controller(/:action(/:id))(.:format)'
which gave the behaviour you describe where a request of the form controller/action would call the given method on the given controller. This line is still in routes.rb but is commented out by default. You can uncomment it to enable this behaviour but the comment above it explains why this is not recommended:
# This is a legacy wild controller route that's not recommended for RESTful applications.
# Note: This route will make all actions in every controller accessible via GET requests.
At the schema ':controller/:action(.:format)', you can also easily do the following
resources :users do
get "foo", on: :collection
end
or
resources :users do
collection do
get 'foo'
end
end
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html#adding-collection-routes

Add action to scaffold generated controller

I have created model, view and controller:
$ rails generate scaffold Post name:string title:string content:text
Then I have added the method on Post controller:
def fill_default_data
Post.fill_default_data
end
But when I have open http://localhost:3000/posts/fill_default_data in browser I get the error:
ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound in
PostsController#show
Couldn't find Post with
ID=fill_default_data
It looks like Rails don't see fill_default_data action and use show method. How can I add new method to scaffold generated controller?
You should add the relevant route to your config/routes.rb file. If you currently have:
resources :posts
You should change that to:
resources :posts do
collection do
get :fill_default_data
end
end
That will generate a route that you can access through /posts/fill_default_data. Now your app is actually accessing the show action and filling in "fill_default_data" as the ID.
Or if you want to add the method to a member rather than the collection, use the following:
resources :posts do
member do
get :fill_default_data, :as => 'fill_out_data'
end
end
This using member if preferred if you are performing the action on a single post rather than on a collection of posts. Also, the :as option generates named route helpers (stuff like *_path or *_url) in case you want them.

Why isn't my 'join' action working, it says the action 'show' can't be found

In my UserController I have:
def join
end
I have a join.html.erb in my /views/user/ folder.
My routes has a :
resources :user
When I go to:
http://localhost:3000/user/join
I get:
The action 'show' could not be found for UserController
Re: why isn't the join action found?
To answer your specific question, what's happening is that you want to have an action "join" for your User model.
Your problem is that you haven't defined a route matching the url http://localhost:3000/user/join
The line resources :user in your routes file only defines routes for the seven standard rest verbs/actions:
index, new, create, show, edit, update, destroy
See: http://apidock.com/rails/ActionController/Resources/resources
Added: to fix, you'll need to add an explicit or generic route. Routing docs
Added: Re: why am I seeing the error message re show? To be ultra-precise, the route selector "GET /usr/:id" (created by your resource call) is being used to select the SHOW action for the User resource. The :id value is being set to "join". Since you don't have a Show method defined in your controller, that's the error that you're seeing.
You're using resources, but have a non-REST action, so you need to add the join action to the route with the appropriate HTTP verb:
map.resources :users, :member => { :join => :get }
Place:
def show
end
in your UserController.
To be certain:
app/controllers/users_controller.rb
def join
end
app/views/users/join.html.erb
config/routes.rb
resources :users

Resources