param with map.resources

Hi all,

With ye olde routes, you could do stuff like:

  map.connect '/foo/:id', :controller => 'bar', :type => 'foo'

but you can't pass arbitrary params into #resources:

  map.resources :foo, :controller => 'bar', :type => 'foo' # bonk!

the :controller key works fine, but :type is just ignored. This would be very handy for an STI-backed controller I have, to change a url like "/bar/new?type=foo" to "/foo/new" but still handle it with BarController.

I've seen a few people ask this question, eg.

http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk/browse_frm/thread/ab38af850896baeb/384c7c3ef2a9f9cb?lnk=gst&q=params+resources#384c7c3ef2a9f9cb

but no answers. I've tried a bunch of stuff with :requirements, :as, :path_prefix, and nesting, but all to no avail. If anyone has any advice, I'd be most grateful.

Thanks, Ian

Ian- It might be helpful if you gave a few more examples of what you want to accomplish. Are you trying to have the following routes all point to the "new" method on the same controller?

/foo/new /bar/new /somethingelse/new

Greg DeVore

Sure. You have it basically right, but let me elaborate.

I have models like so:

class Papa < ActiveRecord::Base; abstract_class = true; end class Daughter < Papa; end class Son < Papa; end

I have this controller:

class PapaController < ApplicationController   def new; @model = new_model; end   def new_model     params[:type].classify.constantize.new # there's more safety logic here in reality, but this is the gist   end end

I started with the default route:

  map.resources :papa

So, then, I can create a new son by doing GET /papa/new?type=son, which is fine, but not ideal. Ideally, I would do GET /son/new, but it would still use the Papa controller, and set params[:type] to "son". This is what I have right now:

  map.resources :papa, :path_prefix => '/:type'

which allows me to GET /son/papa/new, and create links like papa_path(@model.type.to_s.downcase, @model).

So the question is how to make these specs pass:

  params_from(:get, "/son/new").should == {:controller => 'papa', :action => 'new', :type => 'son'}   params_from(:get, "/daughter/new").should == {:controller => 'papa', :action => 'new', :type => 'daughter'}

Is that clearer?

Thanks, Ian

Ian- I don't know how you would do that in the way you are describing. One possibility though would be to do this:

map.resources :sons, :controller => "papas" map.resources :daughters, :controller => "papas"

This will point both routes to the papas controller. You won't see "sons" or "daughters" come through as params. But you can query request.env['REQUEST_URI'] and you would get back something like '/sons/new/'.

So: 1. request.env['REQUEST_URI'].split("/") will give you an array ["","sons","new"] 2. access [1] of the array and you will have your parameter.

A little convoluted but I think that it would do what you want.

Greg

It sounds like you want to be using nested resources. Try something like this

map.resources :papas, :has_many => [:sons, :daughters]

For more info read...

http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionController/Resources.html

Wouldn't that give me "/papas/1/sons/new"? Not exactly what I'm looking for if I understand it correctly, but thanks.

Sigh, yeah, there's always that way. So unrailsy... but probably what I'll end up doing. Or I could patch Resources to make it push any unclaimed options into params. But parsing the URI by hand is probably easier.

Here's what I cooked, up. Wasn't that hard, and appears to work so far...

$ cat lib/param_resources.rb module ParamResources   def self.included base     super base     base.alias_method_chain :action_options_for, :params   end

  def action_options_for_with_params action, resource, method=nil     action_options_for_without_params(action, resource, method).       merge(resource.options[:params] || {})   end end $ cat config/routes.rb ActionController::Routing::RouteSet::Mapper.send :include, ParamResources ActionController::Routing::Routes.draw do |map|

  map.resources :papa   map.resources :son, :controller => :papa, :params => {:type => "son"}   map.resources :daughter, :controller => :papa, :params => {:type => "daughter"} <snip>

I'd be interested in peoples' takes on it.

Thanks, Ian