How to add a custom RESTful route to a Rails app? - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm reading these two pages
resources
Adding more RESTful actions
The Rails Guides page shows
map.resources :photos, :new => { :upload => :post }
And its corresponding URL
/photos/upload
This looks wonderful.
My routes.rb shows this
map.resources :users, :new => { :signup => :get, :register => :post }
When I do: [~/my_app]$ rake routes
I see the two new routes added
signup_new_user GET /users/new/signup(.:format)
register_new_user POST /users/new/register(.:format)
Note the inclusion of /new! I don't want that. I just want /users/signup and /users/register (as described in the Rails Routing Guide).
Any help?

Answer 1

When you expose a controller as a resource, following actions are automatically added:
show
index
new
create
edit
update
destroy
These actions can be categorized in to two groups:
:member actions
The URL for the member action has the id of the target resource. E.g:
users/1/edit
users/1
You can think of :member action as an instance method on a class. It always applies on an existing resource.
Default member actions: show, edit, update, destroy
:collection actions
The URL for the :collection action does not contain the id of the target resource. E.g:
users/login
users/register
You can think of :collection action as a static method on a class.
Default collection actions: index, new, create
In your case you need two new actions for registration. These actions belong to :collection type( as you do not have the id of the user while submitting these actions). Your route can be as follows:
map.resources :users, :collection => { :signup => :get, :register => :post }
The URL for the actions are as follows:
users/signup
users/register
If you want to remove a standard action generated by Rails use :except/:only options:
map.resources :foo, :only => :show
map.resources :foo, :except => [:destroy, :show]
Edit 1
I usually treat the confirmation action as a :member action. In this case params[id] will contain the confirmation code.
Route configuration:
map.resources :users, :member => { :confirm => :get}
URL
/users/xab3454a/confirm
confirm_user_path(:id => #user.confirmation_code) # returns the URL above
Controller
class UsersController < ApplicationController
def confirm
# assuming you have an attribute called `confirmation_code` in `users` table
# and you have added a uniq index on the column!!
if User.find_by_confirmation_code(params[id])
# success
else
# error
end
end
end

Answer 2

This can be taken as just another syntax -- something good to know may be.
Syntax 1:
resources :users do
member do
get 'signup'
post 'register'
end
end
Rake Route Output will include
signup_users GET /users/signup(.:format) {:action=>"signup", :controller=>"users"}
register_users POST /users/register(.:format) {:action=>"register", :controller=>"use
rs"}
Syntax 2:
If you have only one collection route
resources :users do
get 'signup', :on => :collection
end

Answer 3

If i'm understanding your question right, you just want to rename the urls of the new and create actions.
This would be done like so:
map.resources :users, :path_names => {:new => 'signup', :create => 'register'}
If you really would like to add new routes with corresponding controller actions, then Damiens answer is the way to go.

Answer 4

The new option allows you to create new routes for creating new objects. That's why they're prefixed with that term.
What you're looking for is the :collection option.
map.resources :users, :collection => { :signup => :get, :register => :post }
Which will create the /users/signup and /users/register urls.