I have app that will need to be able to display records matching a search criteria. What is the RESTful way to do this? Just an plain index action with search parameters? Should the query parameters be built into the route?
Additionally, the records themselves will have multiple views associated with them, ie: html & graphs, but all via a webpage. Would responds_to be the proper way to approach this?
Thanks in advance.
Hey Mike
I have app that will need to be able to display records matching a search criteria. What is the RESTful way to do this? Just an plain index action with search parameters? Should the query parameters be built into the route?
That's how I would do it. Ideally you'll have a Search object so that it makes writing search rules more modular and results aren't session- based (and you can share them across users). Definitely include the parameters in the URL if for no other reason because you'll strengthen your google juice.
Additionally, the records themselves will have multiple views associated with them, ie: html & graphs, but all via a webpage. Would responds_to be the proper way to approach this?
Well, for different representations responds_to is definitely the way to go (json, xml, etc). You can define a custom responds_to as this guy did for the iphone (http://blog.marcslove.com/2007/6/29/respond_to- iphone-in-rails). Users could call http://yoursite.com/whatever.graph
Alternatively you could create a Graph scaffold and allow users to access http://yoursite.com/graphs/whatever
If this is too vague let me know and I'll try to help out further...
ESPNDev
ESPNdev - thanks alot for the info. Da-da-da Da-da-da!
Mike,
If you can, also check out the Rails Recipes book. One of the recipes is how to write a search controller and actions that are modular and can be shared across multiple other controllers.