Named resources with name prefixes

March 14th, 2007

Rails allows you to define routes with named prefixes. I expected Rails to somehow know that I wanted my prefix to separate the rest of the name with an underscore.

Here was my original routes: 
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ActionController::Routing::Routes.draw do |map|
  map.resources :parties, :path_prefix => "/admin" do |parties|
    parties.resources :addresses,
        :controller => "address_contact_routes",
        :name_prefix => :party
  end

  map.resources :addresses,
      :controller => "address_contact_routes"
end
Then, when I tried to use my route, I was getting a NoMethodError: 
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  1) Error:
test_can_show(AddressContactRoutesControllerTest::PartyWithAddressTest):
ActionView::TemplateError: undefined method `party_address_path' for #<#<Class:0xb768f6ac>:0xb63ee41c>
    On line #3 of app/views/address_contact_routes/_address_contact_route.rhtml

    1: <%
    2:   if address_contact_route.routable && !address_contact_route.new_record? then
    3:     update_url = "#{party_address_path(address_contact_route.routable, address_contact_route)}.txt"
    4:   end
    5: -%>
    6: <% inline_fields_for(:address, address_contact_route, :url => update_url) do |f| -%>

    #{RAILS_ROOT}/app/views/address_contact_routes/_address_contact_route.rhtml:3:in `_run_rhtml_47app47views47address_contact_routes47_address_contact_route46rhtml'

After a bit of sleuthing (and adding messages to ActionController::Routing::RouteSet#add_named_route), I found out that I was supposed to put the underscore myself on the prefix, like this:

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map.resources :parties, :path_prefix => "/admin" do |parties|
  parties.resources :addresses,
      :controller => "address_contact_routes",
      :name_prefix => :party_
end

It was also interesting to see all those generated routes. I discovered that the route with a format was named formatted_whatever.

Here’s a diff against the 1.2 branch of Rails that allows you to see all the generated routes as they are read: 
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$ svn diff vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller
Index: vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/routing.rb
===================================================================
--- vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/routing.rb    (revision 6424)
+++ vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/routing.rb    (working copy)
@@ -349,7 +349,9 @@

         method_decl = "def generate_extras(#{args})\npath, hash = generate_raw(options, hash, expire_on)\n[path, extra_keys(options)]\nend"
         instance_eval method_decl, "generated code (#{__FILE__}:#{__LINE__})"
-        raw_method
+        returning raw_method do
+          RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER.debug {raw_method}
+        end
       end

       # Build several lines of code that extract values from the options hash. If any
@@ -999,6 +1001,7 @@
         deprecate :root => "(as the the label for a named route) will become a shortcut for map.connect '', so find another name"

         def method_missing(route_name, *args, &proc)
+          RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER.debug {"ActionController::Routing::RouteSet::Mapper#method_missing(#{route_name.inspect}, #{args.inspect})"}
           super unless args.length >= 1 && proc.nil?
           @set.add_named_route(route_name, *args)
         end
@@ -1175,6 +1178,7 @@
       end

       def add_named_route(name, path, options = {})
+        RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER.debug {"ActionController::Routing::RouteSet#add_named_route(#{name.inspect}, #{path.inspect}, #{options.inspect})"}
         named_routes[name] = add_route(path, options)
       end
For reference, here are all the generated routes for this declaration: 
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ActionController::Routing::Routes.draw do |map|
  map.resources :layouts, :path_prefix => "/admin"
end
 
layouts => "/admin/layouts" 
formatted_layouts => "/admin/layouts.:format" 
new_layout => "/admin/layouts/new" 
formatted_new_layout => "/admin/layouts/new.:format" 
edit_layout => "/admin/layouts/:id;edit" 
formatted_edit_layout => "/admin/layouts/:id.:format;edit" 
layout => "/admin/layouts/:id" 
formatted_layout => "/admin/layouts/:id.:format"

EDIT (2007-03-14 16:52 EDT): Changed link to routing.rb file to the Rails Trac Browser.

  • 0 comments

Using routes instead of method_missing in Controllers

February 27th, 2006

Over on Software Development Budoka, Berin Loritsch talks about supporting The Rel-Tag Microformat in Rails. Unfortunately, he uses a very obscure approach.

Here is his code: 
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class TagsController < ApplicationController
  layout 'site'

  def method_missing(methodId)
    name = methodId.id2name
    @tag = name
    @tagged_items = Project.find_tagged_with :any => name
    render 'tags\list'
  end
end
Unfortunately, that is very unclear. Much better to use routes to do the same thing: 
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ActionController::Routing::Routes.draw do |map|
  map.connect 'tags/:tag_name',
    :controller => 'tags', :action => 'by_tag'
end
 
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class TagsController < ApplicationController
  layout 'site'

  def by_tag
    @tagged_items = Project.find_tagged_with(
      :any => params[:tag_name])
    render 'tags\list'
  end
end

In my mind, that seems to be the easiest way to do the job.

  • 2 comments

 

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I am François Beausoleil, a Ruby on Rails coder. During the day, I work on XLsuite. At night, I am interested many things. Read my biography

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