Restful Routes not working!

Rails
1

I’ve spent too many hours trying to figure out why this won’t work…

In my routes.rb, I have:

map.resources :auctions, :has_many => :bids

I’ve also tried

map.resources :auctions do |auction|
auction.resources :bids
end

When I try and use the bids paths like bid_path or bids_path, rails
throws and error and tells me that bid_path or bids_path is an
undefined symbol/method. So it seems to not know about the route or
anything…I’ve checked over and it seems the syntax is correct which
is why I’m stumped. Any insights?

2

Hi –

On Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Mike C wrote:

auction.resources :bids
end

When I try and use the bids paths like bid_path or bids_path, rails
throws and error and tells me that bid_path or bids_path is an
undefined symbol/method. So it seems to not know about the route or
anything…I’ve checked over and it seems the syntax is correct which
is why I’m stumped. Any insights?

You want auction_bid_path and auction_bids_path. The nesting is
expressed in the named routes. Also, you have to stack objects when
you use them:

<%= link_to “Click”, auction_bid_path(@auction, @bid) %>

etc. (Unless you want to try my rather experimental Inferred Routes
plugin, which lets you just use (@bid). See:
http://www.risleydale.net/svn/plugins/inferred_routes.)

David

–
Rails training from David A. Black and Ruby Power and Light:
ADVANCING WITH RAILS June 16-19 Berlin
ADVANCING WITH RAILS July 21-24 Edison, NJ
See http://www.rubypal.com for details and updates!

3

are you on rails 2.0? :slight_smile:
If so, check your routes with rake task:

rake routes

make sure that some scaffold didn’t overwrite your config routes (last
occurence matters)

TRIX - Ruby On Rails Development
http://en.trix.pl

4

That way seems to do it, at least now it sees that the paths are
defined. Thanks!

Just wondering, in the tutorials I used it just showed using the paths
as bid_path and bids_path. Was this changed in recent versions, or has
it always been this way?

5

Hi –

On Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Mike C wrote:

That way seems to do it, at least now it sees that the paths are
defined. Thanks!

Just wondering, in the tutorials I used it just showed using the paths
as bid_path and bids_path. Was this changed in recent versions, or has
it always been this way?

It’s changed. A common problem used to arise if you wanted both nested
and non-nested routes for a given resource:

map.resources :bids
map.resources :auctions do |a|
a.resources :bids
end

This tended to give the impression that you could do both this:

bid_path(@bid)

and this:

bid_path(@auction,@bid)

but you couldn’t, because map.resources is basically a macro that
writes methods for you and if you write the bid_path method twice,
only the second version will be usable.

The solution was to add :name_prefix => “auction_” to the second one.
More recently, the addition of the name prefix became automatic, and
it happens whether or not there’s also a separate bids resource.

David

–
Rails training from David A. Black and Ruby Power and Light:
ADVANCING WITH RAILS June 16-19 Berlin
ADVANCING WITH RAILS July 21-24 Edison, NJ
See http://www.rubypal.com for details and updates!

6

Just wondering, in the tutorials I used it just showed using the paths
as bid_path and bids_path. Was this changed in recent versions, or has
it always been this way?

You’re using nested routes, and they always worked this way.

David mentioned solutions to this above, but personally I think that
it’s better to use traditional approach. Especially when used in
views. Such routes as: new_auction_bid_path(@auction) are more
informative.
Common pattern is to use nested resources only in relation parent →
child, so using some experimental plugins isn’t best choice in my
opinion.

look at this example:

map.resources :articles, :has_many => :comments
map.resources :authors, :has_many => :articles

what will be: article_path(@article) using this plugin?
/authors/5/articles/4 or /articles/5?

End the end I will repeat: Checking ‘rake routes’ solves most problems
when problems with routing occurs…

TRIX - Ruby on Rails Development
http://en.trix.pl

7

Hi –

On Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Tomek wrote:

Just wondering, in the tutorials I used it just showed using the paths
as bid_path and bids_path. Was this changed in recent versions, or has
it always been this way?

You’re using nested routes, and they always worked this way.

No – see my earlier email. Here’s an example, using Rails 1.2.3.

In routes.rb:

map.resources :auctions do |a|
a.resources :bids
end

In the console:

r = ActionController::Routing::Routes
=> [lots of output]
puts r.named_routes.map {|x| x[0].to_s }.grep(/bid/).sort
bid
bids
edit_bid
formatted_bid
formatted_bids
formatted_edit_bid
formatted_new_bid
new_bid
r.recognize_path(app.bids_path(:auction_id => 1), :method => :get)
=> {:controller=>“bids”, :action=>“index”, :auction_id=>“1”}
r.recognize_path(app.auction_bids_path(:auction_id => 1), :method
=> :get)
NoMethodError: undefined method `auction_bids_path’ for
#ActionController::Integration::Session:0x20e66ac

It may be ancient history (except for the concern about outdated
tutorials), but it really did once work that way.

David mentioned solutions to this above, but personally I think that
it’s better to use traditional approach. Especially when used in
views. Such routes as: new_auction_bid_path(@auction) are more
informative.
Common pattern is to use nested resources only in relation parent →
child, so using some experimental plugins isn’t best choice in my
opinion.

I don’t think using an experimental plugin in production is ever a
good idea, but I thought it was worth mentioning since we were
discussing the problem space it addresses.

look at this example:

map.resources :articles, :has_many => :comments
map.resources :authors, :has_many => :articles

what will be: article_path(@article) using this plugin?
/authors/5/articles/4 or /articles/5?

article_path has nothing to do with author_article_path. The plugin
sees no more ambiguity in this than the routing system in general
does.

The point of the plugin is that this:

author_article_path(@article)

will be interpreted by the plugin as if it were:

author_article_path(@article.author, @article)

In other words, it infers the route segments from the one object.

David

–
Rails training from David A. Black and Ruby Power and Light:
ADVANCING WITH RAILS June 16-19 Berlin
ADVANCING WITH RAILS July 21-24 Edison, NJ
See http://www.rubypal.com for details and updates!

8

Oh I see, thanks a lot! And yes, I am running Rails 2.1 right now.

Do you guys happen to know of any up to date Restful tutorials? :slight_smile: All
the ones I have seem to be outdated since they refer to the same thing
which doesn’t work right now.

9

Ok, now I’m trying to create a new link for a bid. Doing this gives an
error:

<%= link_to ‘New bid’, new_auction_bid_path(@auction) %>

It says there is no method bid_path…seriously, I have to admit I’m
getting frustrated with all these routes and stuff. I’ve looked all
over for updated tutorials and have found nothing so I’m confused as
to how people learn this.

10

Mike C wrote:

Can you show us the exact error please?

11

I don’t think using an experimental plugin in production is ever a
good idea, but I thought it was worth mentioning since we were
discussing the problem space it addresses.

Of course it was worth mentioning. I’ll give it a try.
As I remember ‘make_resourceful’ has similiar features, but it goes
even further:
you can use just: object_path(@object). What’s cool It is aware of
current namespace

The point of the plugin is that this:

author_article_path(@article)

will be interpreted by the plugin as if it were:

author_article_path(@article.author, @article)

Ok, Thanks for explanation. I should have checked this plugin more
carefully.
IMO there is very little advantage of using this… (in comparision to
make_resourceful)
I know that these plugin aren’t equivalent.