1 The Purpose of the Rails Router
The
Rails router recognizes URLs and dispatches them to a controller's
action, or to a Rack application. It can also generate paths and URLs,
avoiding the need to hardcode strings in your views.
1.1 Connecting URLs to Code
When your Rails application receives an incoming request for:
it asks the router to match it to a controller action. If the first matching route is:
get '/patients/:id', to: 'patients#show'
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the request is dispatched to the
patients controller's
show action with
{ id: '17' } in
params.
1.2 Generating Paths and URLs from Code
You can also generate paths and URLs. If the route above is modified to be:
get '/patients/:id', to: 'patients#show', as: 'patient'
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and your application contains this code in the controller:
@patient = Patient.find(17)
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and this in the corresponding view:
<%= link_to 'Patient Record', patient_path(@patient) %>
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then the router will generate the path
/patients/17.
This reduces the brittleness of your view and makes your code easier to
understand. Note that the id does not need to be specified in the route
helper.
2 Resource Routing: the Rails Default
Resource
routing allows you to quickly declare all of the common routes for a
given resourceful controller. Instead of declaring separate routes for
your
index,
show,
new,
edit,
create,
update and
destroy actions, a resourceful route declares them in a single line of code.
2.1 Resources on the Web
Browsers request pages from Rails by making a request for a URL using a specific HTTP method, such as
GET,
POST,
PATCH,
PUT and
DELETE.
Each method is a request to perform an operation on the resource. A
resource route maps a number of related requests to actions in a single
controller.
When your Rails application receives an incoming request for:
it asks the router to map it to a controller action. If the first matching route is:
Rails would dispatch that request to the
destroy action on the
photos controller with
{ id: '17' } in
params.
2.2 CRUD, Verbs, and Actions
In Rails, a resourceful route provides a mapping between HTTP verbs and URLs to
controller actions. By convention, each action also maps to a specific CRUD
operation in a database. A single entry in the routing file, such as:
creates seven different routes in your application, all mapping to the
Photos controller:
| HTTP Verb |
Path |
Controller#Action |
Used for |
| GET |
/photos |
photos#index |
display a list of all photos |
| GET |
/photos/new |
photos#new |
return an HTML form for creating a new photo |
| POST |
/photos |
photos#create |
create a new photo |
| GET |
/photos/:id |
photos#show |
display a specific photo |
| GET |
/photos/:id/edit |
photos#edit |
return an HTML form for editing a photo |
| PATCH/PUT |
/photos/:id |
photos#update |
update a specific photo |
| DELETE |
/photos/:id |
photos#destroy |
delete a specific photo |
Because the router uses the HTTP verb and URL to match inbound requests, four URLs map to seven different actions.
Rails routes are matched in the order they are specified, so if you have a resources :photos above a get 'photos/poll' the show action's route for the resources line will be matched before the get line. To fix this, move the get line above the resources line so that it is matched first.
2.3 Path and URL Helpers
Creating a resourceful route will also expose a number of helpers to the controllers in your application. In the case of
resources :photos:
-
photos_path returns /photos
-
new_photo_path returns /photos/new
-
edit_photo_path(:id) returns /photos/:id/edit (for instance, edit_photo_path(10) returns /photos/10/edit)
-
photo_path(:id) returns /photos/:id (for instance, photo_path(10) returns /photos/10)
Each of these helpers has a corresponding
_url helper (such as
photos_url) which returns the same path prefixed with the current host, port and path prefix.
2.4 Defining Multiple Resources at the Same Time
If
you need to create routes for more than one resource, you can save a
bit of typing by defining them all with a single call to
resources:
resources :photos, :books, :videos
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This works exactly the same as:
resources :photos
resources :books
resources :videos
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2.5 Singular Resources
Sometimes, you have a resource that clients always look up without referencing an ID. For example, you would like
/profile to always show the profile of the currently logged in user. In this case, you can use a singular resource to map
/profile (rather than
/profile/:id) to the
show action:
get 'profile', to: 'users#show'
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Passing a
String to
get will expect a
controller#action format, while passing a
Symbol will map directly to an action but you must also specify the
controller: to use:
get 'profile', to: :show, controller: 'users'
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This resourceful route:
creates six different routes in your application, all mapping to the
Geocoders controller:
| HTTP Verb |
Path |
Controller#Action |
Used for |
| GET |
/geocoder/new |
geocoders#new |
return an HTML form for creating the geocoder |
| POST |
/geocoder |
geocoders#create |
create the new geocoder |
| GET |
/geocoder |
geocoders#show |
display the one and only geocoder resource |
| GET |
/geocoder/edit |
geocoders#edit |
return an HTML form for editing the geocoder |
| PATCH/PUT |
/geocoder |
geocoders#update |
update the one and only geocoder resource |
| DELETE |
/geocoder |
geocoders#destroy |
delete the geocoder resource |
Because you might want to use the same controller for a singular route (/account) and a plural route (/accounts/45), singular resources map to plural controllers. So that, for example, resource :photo and resources :photos creates both singular and plural routes that map to the same controller (PhotosController).
A singular resourceful route generates these helpers:
-
new_geocoder_path returns /geocoder/new
-
edit_geocoder_path returns /geocoder/edit
-
geocoder_path returns /geocoder
As with plural resources, the same helpers ending in
_url will also include the host, port and path prefix.
A
long-standing bug prevents
form_for from working automatically with singular resources. As a workaround, specify the URL for the form directly, like so:
form_for @geocoder, url: geocoder_path do |f|
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2.6 Controller Namespaces and Routing
You
may wish to organize groups of controllers under a namespace. Most
commonly, you might group a number of administrative controllers under
an
Admin:: namespace. You would place these controllers under the
app/controllers/admin directory, and you can group them together in your router:
namespace :admin do
resources :articles, :comments
end
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This will create a number of routes for each of the
articles and
comments controller. For
Admin::ArticlesController, Rails will create:
| HTTP Verb |
Path |
Controller#Action |
Named Helper |
| GET |
/admin/articles |
admin/articles#index |
admin_articles_path |
| GET |
/admin/articles/new |
admin/articles#new |
new_admin_article_path |
| POST |
/admin/articles |
admin/articles#create |
admin_articles_path |
| GET |
/admin/articles/:id |
admin/articles#show |
admin_article_path(:id) |
| GET |
/admin/articles/:id/edit |
admin/articles#edit |
edit_admin_article_path(:id) |
| PATCH/PUT |
/admin/articles/:id |
admin/articles#update |
admin_article_path(:id) |
| DELETE |
/admin/articles/:id |
admin/articles#destroy |
admin_article_path(:id) |
If you want to route
/articles (without the prefix
/admin) to
Admin::ArticlesController, you could use:
scope module: 'admin' do
resources :articles, :comments
end
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or, for a single case:
resources :articles, module: 'admin'
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If you want to route
/admin/articles to
ArticlesController (without the
Admin:: module prefix), you could use:
scope '/admin' do
resources :articles, :comments
end
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or, for a single case:
resources :articles, path: '/admin/articles'
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In each of these cases, the named routes remain the same as if you did not use
scope. In the last case, the following paths map to
ArticlesController:
| HTTP Verb |
Path |
Controller#Action |
Named Helper |
| GET |
/admin/articles |
articles#index |
articles_path |
| GET |
/admin/articles/new |
articles#new |
new_article_path |
| POST |
/admin/articles |
articles#create |
articles_path |
| GET |
/admin/articles/:id |
articles#show |
article_path(:id) |
| GET |
/admin/articles/:id/edit |
articles#edit |
edit_article_path(:id) |
| PATCH/PUT |
/admin/articles/:id |
articles#update |
article_path(:id) |
| DELETE |
/admin/articles/:id |
articles#destroy |
article_path(:id) |
If you need to use a different controller namespace inside a namespace block you can specify an absolute controller path, e.g: get '/foo' => '/foo#index'.
2.7 Nested Resources
It's
common to have resources that are logically children of other
resources. For example, suppose your application includes these models:
class Magazine < ApplicationRecord
has_many :ads
end
class Ad < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :magazine
end
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Nested routes allow you to capture this relationship in your routing. In this case, you could include this route declaration:
resources :magazines do
resources :ads
end
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In addition to the routes for magazines, this declaration will also route ads to an
AdsController. The ad URLs require a magazine:
| HTTP Verb |
Path |
Controller#Action |
Used for |
| GET |
/magazines/:magazine_id/ads |
ads#index |
display a list of all ads for a specific magazine |
| GET |
/magazines/:magazine_id/ads/new |
ads#new |
return an HTML form for creating a new ad belonging to a specific magazine |
| POST |
/magazines/:magazine_id/ads |
ads#create |
create a new ad belonging to a specific magazine |
| GET |
/magazines/:magazine_id/ads/:id |
ads#show |
display a specific ad belonging to a specific magazine |
| GET |
/magazines/:magazine_id/ads/:id/edit |
ads#edit |
return an HTML form for editing an ad belonging to a specific magazine |
| PATCH/PUT |
/magazines/:magazine_id/ads/:id |
ads#update |
update a specific ad belonging to a specific magazine |
| DELETE |
/magazines/:magazine_id/ads/:id |
ads#destroy |
delete a specific ad belonging to a specific magazine |
This will also create routing helpers such as
magazine_ads_url and
edit_magazine_ad_path. These helpers take an instance of Magazine as the first parameter (
magazine_ads_url(@magazine)).
2.7.1 Limits to Nesting
You can nest resources within other nested resources if you like. For example:
resources :publishers do
resources :magazines do
resources :photos
end
end
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Deeply-nested resources quickly become cumbersome. In this case, for example, the application would recognize paths such as:
/publishers/1/magazines/2/photos/3
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The corresponding route helper would be
publisher_magazine_photo_url, requiring you to specify objects at all three levels. Indeed, this situation is confusing enough that a popular
article by Jamis Buck proposes a rule of thumb for good Rails design:
Resources should never be nested more than 1 level deep.
2.7.2 Shallow Nesting
One
way to avoid deep nesting (as recommended above) is to generate the
collection actions scoped under the parent, so as to get a sense of the
hierarchy, but to not nest the member actions. In other words, to only
build routes with the minimal amount of information to uniquely identify
the resource, like this:
resources :articles do
resources :comments, only: [:index, :new, :create]
end
resources :comments, only: [:show, :edit, :update, :destroy]
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This idea strikes a balance between descriptive routes and deep
nesting. There exists shorthand syntax to achieve just that, via the
:shallow option:
resources :articles do
resources :comments, shallow: true
end
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This will generate the exact same routes as the first example. You can also specify the
:shallow option in the parent resource, in which case all of the nested resources will be shallow:
resources :articles, shallow: true do
resources :comments
resources :quotes
resources :drafts
end
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The
shallow method of the DSL creates a scope inside of
which every nesting is shallow. This generates the same routes as the
previous example:
shallow do
resources :articles do
resources :comments
resources :quotes
resources :drafts
end
end
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There exist two options for
scope to customize shallow routes.
:shallow_path prefixes member paths with the specified parameter:
scope shallow_path: "sekret" do
resources :articles do
resources :comments, shallow: true
end
end
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The comments resource here will have the following routes generated for it:
| HTTP Verb |
Path |
Controller#Action |
Named Helper |
| GET |
/articles/:article_id/comments(.:format) |
comments#index |
article_comments_path |
| POST |
/articles/:article_id/comments(.:format) |
comments#create |
article_comments_path |
| GET |
/articles/:article_id/comments/new(.:format) |
comments#new |
new_article_comment_path |
| GET |
/sekret/comments/:id/edit(.:format) |
comments#edit |
edit_comment_path |
| GET |
/sekret/comments/:id(.:format) |
comments#show |
comment_path |
| PATCH/PUT |
/sekret/comments/:id(.:format) |
comments#update |
comment_path |
| DELETE |
/sekret/comments/:id(.:format) |
comments#destroy |
comment_path |
The
:shallow_prefix option adds the specified parameter to the named helpers:
scope shallow_prefix: "sekret" do
resources :articles do
resources :comments, shallow: true
end
end
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The comments resource here will have the following routes generated for it:
| HTTP Verb |
Path |
Controller#Action |
Named Helper |
| GET |
/articles/:article_id/comments(.:format) |
comments#index |
article_comments_path |
| POST |
/articles/:article_id/comments(.:format) |
comments#create |
article_comments_path |
| GET |
/articles/:article_id/comments/new(.:format) |
comments#new |
new_article_comment_path |
| GET |
/comments/:id/edit(.:format) |
comments#edit |
edit_sekret_comment_path |
| GET |
/comments/:id(.:format) |
comments#show |
sekret_comment_path |
| PATCH/PUT |
/comments/:id(.:format) |
comments#update |
sekret_comment_path |
| DELETE |
/comments/:id(.:format) |
comments#destroy |
sekret_comment_path |
2.8 Routing concerns
Routing concerns allow you to declare common routes that can be reused inside other resources and routes. To define a concern:
concern :commentable do
resources :comments
end
concern :image_attachable do
resources :images, only: :index
end
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These concerns can be used in resources to avoid code duplication and share behavior across routes:
resources :messages, concerns: :commentable
resources :articles, concerns: [:commentable, :image_attachable]
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The above is equivalent to:
resources :messages do
resources :comments
end
resources :articles do
resources :comments
resources :images, only: :index
end
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Also you can use them in any place that you want inside the routes, for example in a scope or namespace call:
namespace :articles do
concerns :commentable
end
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2.9 Creating Paths and URLs From Objects
In
addition to using the routing helpers, Rails can also create paths and
URLs from an array of parameters. For example, suppose you have this set
of routes:
resources :magazines do
resources :ads
end
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When using
magazine_ad_path, you can pass in instances of
Magazine and
Ad instead of the numeric IDs:
<%= link_to 'Ad details', magazine_ad_path(@magazine, @ad) %>
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You can also use
url_for with a set of objects, and Rails will automatically determine which route you want:
<%= link_to 'Ad details', url_for([@magazine, @ad]) %>
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In this case, Rails will see that
@magazine is a
Magazine and
@ad is an
Ad and will therefore use the
magazine_ad_path helper. In helpers like
link_to, you can specify just the object in place of the full
url_for call:
<%= link_to 'Ad details', [@magazine, @ad] %>
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If you wanted to link to just a magazine:
<%= link_to 'Magazine details', @magazine %>
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For other actions, you just need to insert the action name as the first element of the array:
<%= link_to 'Edit Ad', [:edit, @magazine, @ad] %>
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This allows you to treat instances of your models as URLs, and is a key advantage to using the resourceful style.
2.10 Adding More RESTful Actions
You
are not limited to the seven routes that RESTful routing creates by
default. If you like, you may add additional routes that apply to the
collection or individual members of the collection.
2.10.1 Adding Member Routes
To add a member route, just add a
member block into the resource block:
resources :photos do
member do
get 'preview'
end
end
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This will recognize
/photos/1/preview with GET, and route to the
preview action of
PhotosController, with the resource id value passed in
params[:id]. It will also create the
preview_photo_url and
preview_photo_path helpers.
Within the block of member routes, each route name specifies the HTTP verb
will be recognized. You can use
get,
patch,
put,
post, or
delete here
. If you don't have multiple
member routes, you can also pass
:on to a
route, eliminating the block:
resources :photos do
get 'preview', on: :member
end
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You can leave out the
:on option, this will create the same member route except that the resource id value will be available in
params[:photo_id] instead of
params[:id].
2.10.2 Adding Collection Routes
To add a route to the collection:
resources :photos do
collection do
get 'search'
end
end
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This will enable Rails to recognize paths such as
/photos/search with GET, and route to the
search action of
PhotosController. It will also create the
search_photos_url and
search_photos_path route helpers.
Just as with member routes, you can pass
:on to a route:
resources :photos do
get 'search', on: :collection
end
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2.10.3 Adding Routes for Additional New Actions
To add an alternate new action using the
:on shortcut:
resources :comments do
get 'preview', on: :new
end
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This will enable Rails to recognize paths such as
/comments/new/preview with GET, and route to the
preview action of
CommentsController. It will also create the
preview_new_comment_url and
preview_new_comment_path route helpers.
If
you find yourself adding many extra actions to a resourceful route,
it's time to stop and ask yourself whether you're disguising the
presence of another resource.
3 Non-Resourceful Routes
In
addition to resource routing, Rails has powerful support for routing
arbitrary URLs to actions. Here, you don't get groups of routes
automatically generated by resourceful routing. Instead, you set up each
route within your application separately.
While you should
usually use resourceful routing, there are still many places where the
simpler routing is more appropriate. There's no need to try to shoehorn
every last piece of your application into a resourceful framework if
that's not a good fit.
In particular, simple routing makes it very easy to map legacy URLs to new Rails actions.
3.1 Bound Parameters
When
you set up a regular route, you supply a series of symbols that Rails
maps to parts of an incoming HTTP request. For example, consider this
route:
get 'photos(/:id)', to: :display
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If an incoming request of
/photos/1 is processed by this route (because it hasn't matched any previous route in the file), then the result will be to invoke the
display action of the
PhotosController, and to make the final parameter
"1" available as
params[:id]. This route will also route the incoming request of
/photos to
PhotosController#display, since
:id is an optional parameter, denoted by parentheses.
3.2 Dynamic Segments
You
can set up as many dynamic segments within a regular route as you like.
Any segment will be available to the action as part of
params. If you set up this route:
get 'photos/:id/:user_id', to: 'photos#show'
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An incoming path of
/photos/1/2 will be dispatched to the
show action of the
PhotosController.
params[:id] will be
"1", and
params[:user_id] will be
"2".
By
default, dynamic segments don't accept dots - this is because the dot
is used as a separator for formatted routes. If you need to use a dot
within a dynamic segment, add a constraint that overrides this – for
example, id: /[^\/]+/ allows anything except a slash.
3.3 Static Segments
You can specify static segments when creating a route by not prepending a colon to a fragment:
get 'photos/:id/with_user/:user_id', to: 'photos#show'
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This route would respond to paths such as
/photos/1/with_user/2. In this case,
params would be
{ controller: 'photos', action: 'show', id: '1', user_id: '2' }.
3.4 The Query String
The
params will also include any parameters from the query string. For example, with this route:
get 'photos/:id', to: 'photos#show'
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An incoming path of
/photos/1?user_id=2 will be dispatched to the
show action of the
Photos controller.
params will be
{ controller: 'photos', action: 'show', id: '1', user_id: '2' }.
3.5 Defining Defaults
You can define defaults in a route by supplying a hash for the
:defaults option. This even applies to parameters that you do not specify as dynamic segments. For example:
get 'photos/:id', to: 'photos#show', defaults: { format: 'jpg' }
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Rails would match
photos/12 to the
show action of
PhotosController, and set
params[:format] to
"jpg".
You can also use
defaults in a block format to define the defaults for multiple items:
defaults format: :json do
resources :photos
end
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You cannot override defaults via query parameters -
this is for security reasons. The only defaults that can be overridden
are dynamic segments via substitution in the URL path.
3.6 Naming Routes
You can specify a name for any route using the
:as option:
get 'exit', to: 'sessions#destroy', as: :logout
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This will create
logout_path and
logout_url as named helpers in your application. Calling
logout_path will return
/exit
You can also use this to override routing methods defined by resources, like this:
get ':username', to: 'users#show', as: :user
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This will define a
user_path method that will be available in controllers, helpers and views that will go to a route such as
/bob. Inside the
show action of
UsersController,
params[:username] will contain the username for the user. Change
:username in the route definition if you do not want your parameter name to be
:username.
3.7 HTTP Verb Constraints
In general, you should use the
get,
post,
put,
patch and
delete methods to constrain a route to a particular verb. You can use the
match method with the
:via option to match multiple verbs at once:
match 'photos', to: 'photos#show', via: [:get, :post]
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You can match all verbs to a particular route using
via: :all:
match 'photos', to: 'photos#show', via: :all
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Routing both GET and POST
requests to a single action has security implications. In general, you
should avoid routing all verbs to an action unless you have a good
reason to.
'GET' in Rails won't check for
CSRF token. You should never write to the database from 'GET' requests,
for more information see the
security guide on CSRF countermeasures.
3.8 Segment Constraints
You can use the
:constraints option to enforce a format for a dynamic segment:
get 'photos/:id', to: 'photos#show', constraints: { id: /[A-Z]\d{5}/ }
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This route would match paths such as
/photos/A12345, but not
/photos/893. You can more succinctly express the same route this way:
get 'photos/:id', to: 'photos#show', id: /[A-Z]\d{5}/
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:constraints takes regular expressions with the
restriction that regexp anchors can't be used. For example, the
following route will not work:
get '/:id', to: 'articles#show', constraints: { id: /^\d/ }
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However, note that you don't need to use anchors because all routes are anchored at the start.
For example, the following routes would allow for
articles with
to_param values like
1-hello-world that always begin with a number and
users with
to_param values like
david that never begin with a number to share the root namespace:
get '/:id', to: 'articles#show', constraints: { id: /\d.+/ }
get '/:username', to: 'users#show'
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3.9 Request-Based Constraints
You can also constrain a route based on any method on the
Request object that returns a
String.
You specify a request-based constraint the same way that you specify a segment constraint:
get 'photos', to: 'photos#index', constraints: { subdomain: 'admin' }
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You can also specify constraints in a block form:
namespace :admin do
constraints subdomain: 'admin' do
resources :photos
end
end
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Request constraints work by calling a method on the
Request object
with the same name as the hash key and then compare the return value
with the hash value. Therefore, constraint values should match the
corresponding Request object method return type. For example:
constraints: { subdomain: 'api' } will match an
api subdomain as expected, however using a symbol
constraints: { subdomain: :api } will not, because
request.subdomain returns
'api' as a String.
There is an exception for the
format
constraint: while it's a method on the Request object, it's also an
implicit optional parameter on every path. Segment constraints take
precedence and the
format constraint is only applied as such when enforced through a hash. For example,
get 'foo', constraints: { format: 'json' } will match
GET /foo because the format is optional by default. However, you can
use a lambda like in
get 'foo', constraints: lambda { |req| req.format == :json } and the route will only match explicit JSON requests.
3.10 Advanced Constraints
If you have a more advanced constraint, you can provide an object that responds to
matches? that Rails should use. Let's say you wanted to route all users on a blacklist to the
BlacklistController. You could do:
class BlacklistConstraint
def initialize
@ips = Blacklist.retrieve_ips
end
def matches?(request)
@ips.include?(request.remote_ip)
end
end
Rails.application.routes.draw do
get '*path', to: 'blacklist#index',
constraints: BlacklistConstraint.new
end
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You can also specify constraints as a lambda:
Rails.application.routes.draw do
get '*path', to: 'blacklist#index',
constraints: lambda { |request| Blacklist.retrieve_ips.include?(request.remote_ip) }
end
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Both the
matches? method and the lambda gets the
request object as an argument.
3.11 Route Globbing and Wildcard Segments
Route
globbing is a way to specify that a particular parameter should be
matched to all the remaining parts of a route. For example:
get 'photos/*other', to: 'photos#unknown'
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This route would match
photos/12 or
/photos/long/path/to/12, setting
params[:other] to
"12" or
"long/path/to/12". The fragments prefixed with a star are called "wildcard segments".
Wildcard segments can occur anywhere in a route. For example:
get 'books/*section/:title', to: 'books#show'
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would match
books/some/section/last-words-a-memoir with
params[:section] equals
'some/section', and
params[:title] equals
'last-words-a-memoir'.
Technically,
a route can have even more than one wildcard segment. The matcher
assigns segments to parameters in an intuitive way. For example:
get '*a/foo/*b', to: 'test#index'
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would match
zoo/woo/foo/bar/baz with
params[:a] equals
'zoo/woo', and
params[:b] equals
'bar/baz'.
By requesting '/foo/bar.json', your params[:pages] will be equal to 'foo/bar' with the request format of JSON. If you want the old 3.0.x behavior back, you could supply format: false like this:
get '*pages', to: 'pages#show', format: false
|
If you want to make the format segment mandatory, so it cannot be omitted, you can supply format: true like this:
get '*pages', to: 'pages#show', format: true
|
3.12 Redirection
You can redirect any path to another path using the
redirect helper in your router:
get '/stories', to: redirect('/articles')
|
You can also reuse dynamic segments from the match in the path to redirect to:
get '/stories/:name', to: redirect('/articles/%{name}')
|
You can also provide a block to redirect, which receives the symbolized path parameters and the request object:
get '/stories/:name', to: redirect { |path_params, req| "/articles/#{path_params[:name].pluralize}" }
get '/stories', to: redirect { |path_params, req| "/articles/#{req.subdomain}" }
|
Please note that default redirection is a 301 "Moved Permanently"
redirect. Keep in mind that some web browsers or proxy servers will
cache this type of redirect, making the old page inaccessible. You can
use the
:status option to change the response status:
get '/stories/:name', to: redirect('/articles/%{name}', status: 302)
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In all of these cases, if you don't provide the leading host (
http://www.example.com), Rails will take those details from the current request.
3.13 Routing to Rack Applications
Instead of a String like
'articles#index', which corresponds to the
index action in the
ArticlesController, you can specify any
Rack application as the endpoint for a matcher:
match '/application.js', to: MyRackApp, via: :all
|
As long as
MyRackApp responds to
call and returns a
[status, headers, body], the router won't know the difference between the Rack application and an action. This is an appropriate use of
via: :all, as you will want to allow your Rack application to handle all verbs as it considers appropriate.
For the curious, 'articles#index' actually expands out to ArticlesController.action(:index), which returns a valid Rack application.
If you specify a Rack application as the endpoint for a matcher, remember that
the route will be unchanged in the receiving application. With the following
route your Rack application should expect the route to be '/admin':
match '/admin', to: AdminApp, via: :all
|
If you would prefer to have your Rack application receive requests at the root
path instead, use mount:
mount AdminApp, at: '/admin'
|
3.14 Using root
You can specify what Rails should route
'/' to with the
root method:
root to: 'pages#main'
root 'pages#main' # shortcut for the above
|
You should put the
root route at the top of the file, because it is the most popular route and should be matched first.
The root route only routes GET requests to the action.
You can also use root inside namespaces and scopes as well. For example:
namespace :admin do
root to: "admin#index"
end
root to: "home#index"
|
3.15 Unicode character routes
You can specify unicode character routes directly. For example:
get 'こんにちは', to: 'welcome#index'
|
4 Customizing Resourceful Routes
While the default routes and helpers generated by
resources :articles
will usually serve you well, you may want to customize them in some
way. Rails allows you to customize virtually any generic part of the
resourceful helpers.
4.1 Specifying a Controller to Use
The
:controller option lets you explicitly specify a controller to use for the resource. For example:
resources :photos, controller: 'images'
|
will recognize incoming paths beginning with
/photos but route to the
Images controller:
| HTTP Verb |
Path |
Controller#Action |
Named Helper |
| GET |
/photos |
images#index |
photos_path |
| GET |
/photos/new |
images#new |
new_photo_path |
| POST |
/photos |
images#create |
photos_path |
| GET |
/photos/:id |
images#show |
photo_path(:id) |
| GET |
/photos/:id/edit |
images#edit |
edit_photo_path(:id) |
| PATCH/PUT |
/photos/:id |
images#update |
photo_path(:id) |
| DELETE |
/photos/:id |
images#destroy |
photo_path(:id) |
Use photos_path, new_photo_path, etc. to generate paths for this resource.
For namespaced controllers you can use the directory notation. For example:
resources :user_permissions, controller: 'admin/user_permissions'
|
This will route to the
Admin::UserPermissions controller.
Only the directory notation is supported. Specifying the
controller with Ruby constant notation (eg. controller: 'Admin::UserPermissions')
can lead to routing problems and results in
a warning.
4.2 Specifying Constraints
You can use the
:constraints option to specify a required format on the implicit
id. For example:
resources :photos, constraints: { id: /[A-Z][A-Z][0-9]+/ }
|
This declaration constrains the
:id parameter to match the supplied regular expression. So, in this case, the router would no longer match
/photos/1 to this route. Instead,
/photos/RR27 would match.
You can specify a single constraint to apply to a number of routes by using the block form:
constraints(id: /[A-Z][A-Z][0-9]+/) do
resources :photos
resources :accounts
end
|
Of course, you can use the more advanced constraints available in non-resourceful routes in this context.
By default the :id
parameter doesn't accept dots - this is because the dot is used as a
separator for formatted routes. If you need to use a dot within an :id add a constraint which overrides this - for example id: /[^\/]+/ allows anything except a slash.
4.3 Overriding the Named Helpers
The
:as option lets you override the normal naming for the named route helpers. For example:
resources :photos, as: 'images'
|
will recognize incoming paths beginning with
/photos and route the requests to
PhotosController, but use the value of the
:as option to name the helpers.
| HTTP Verb |
Path |
Controller#Action |
Named Helper |
| GET |
/photos |
photos#index |
images_path |
| GET |
/photos/new |
photos#new |
new_image_path |
| POST |
/photos |
photos#create |
images_path |
| GET |
/photos/:id |
photos#show |
image_path(:id) |
| GET |
/photos/:id/edit |
photos#edit |
edit_image_path(:id) |
| PATCH/PUT |
/photos/:id |
photos#update |
image_path(:id) |
| DELETE |
/photos/:id |
photos#destroy |
image_path(:id) |
4.4 Overriding the new and edit Segments
The
:path_names option lets you override the automatically-generated
new and
edit segments in paths:
resources :photos, path_names: { new: 'make', edit: 'change' }
|
This would cause the routing to recognize paths such as:
/photos/make
/photos/1/change
|
The actual action names aren't changed by this option. The two paths shown would still route to the new and edit actions.
If you find yourself wanting to change this option uniformly for all of your routes, you can use a scope.
scope path_names: { new: 'make' } do
end
|
4.5 Prefixing the Named Route Helpers
You can use the
:as
option to prefix the named route helpers that Rails generates for a
route. Use this option to prevent name collisions between routes using a
path scope. For example:
scope 'admin' do
resources :photos, as: 'admin_photos'
end
resources :photos
|
This will provide route helpers such as
admin_photos_path,
new_admin_photo_path, etc.
To prefix a group of route helpers, use
:as with
scope:
scope 'admin', as: 'admin' do
resources :photos, :accounts
end
resources :photos, :accounts
|
This will generate routes such as
admin_photos_path and
admin_accounts_path which map to
/admin/photos and
/admin/accounts respectively.
The namespace scope will automatically add :as as well as :module and :path prefixes.
You can prefix routes with a named parameter also:
scope ':username' do
resources :articles
end
|
This will provide you with URLs such as
/bob/articles/1 and will allow you to reference the
username part of the path as
params[:username] in controllers, helpers and views.
4.6 Restricting the Routes Created
By default, Rails creates routes for the seven default actions (
index,
show,
new,
create,
edit,
update, and
destroy) for every RESTful route in your application. You can use the
:only and
:except options to fine-tune this behavior. The
:only option tells Rails to create only the specified routes:
resources :photos, only: [:index, :show]
|
Now, a
GET request to
/photos would succeed, but a
POST request to
/photos (which would ordinarily be routed to the
create action) will fail.
The
:except option specifies a route or list of routes that Rails should
not create:
resources :photos, except: :destroy
|
In this case, Rails will create all of the normal routes except the route for
destroy (a
DELETE request to
/photos/:id).
If your application has many RESTful routes, using :only and :except to generate only the routes that you actually need can cut down on memory use and speed up the routing process.
4.7 Translated Paths
Using
scope, we can alter path names generated by
resources:
scope(path_names: { new: 'neu', edit: 'bearbeiten' }) do
resources :categories, path: 'kategorien'
end
|
Rails now creates routes to the
CategoriesController.
| HTTP Verb |
Path |
Controller#Action |
Named Helper |
| GET |
/kategorien |
categories#index |
categories_path |
| GET |
/kategorien/neu |
categories#new |
new_category_path |
| POST |
/kategorien |
categories#create |
categories_path |
| GET |
/kategorien/:id |
categories#show |
category_path(:id) |
| GET |
/kategorien/:id/bearbeiten |
categories#edit |
edit_category_path(:id) |
| PATCH/PUT |
/kategorien/:id |
categories#update |
category_path(:id) |
| DELETE |
/kategorien/:id |
categories#destroy |
category_path(:id) |
If you want to define the singular form of a resource, you should add additional rules to the
Inflector:
ActiveSupport::Inflector.inflections do |inflect|
inflect.irregular 'tooth', 'teeth'
end
|
4.9 Using :as in Nested Resources
The
:as option overrides the automatically-generated name for the resource in nested route helpers. For example:
resources :magazines do
resources :ads, as: 'periodical_ads'
end
|
This will create routing helpers such as
magazine_periodical_ads_url and
edit_magazine_periodical_ad_path.
4.10 Overriding Named Route Parameters
The
:param option overrides the default resource identifier
:id (name of
the
dynamic segment used to generate the
routes). You can access that segment from your controller using
params[<:param>].
resources :videos, param: :identifier
|
videos GET /videos(.:format) videos#index
POST /videos(.:format) videos#create
new_videos GET /videos/new(.:format) videos#new
edit_videos GET /videos/:identifier/edit(.:format) videos#edit
|
Video.find_by(identifier: params[:identifier])
|
You can override
ActiveRecord::Base#to_param of a related model to construct
a URL:
class Video < ApplicationRecord
def to_param
identifier
end
end
video = Video.find_by(identifier: "Roman-Holiday")
edit_videos_path(video)
|
5 Inspecting and Testing Routes
Rails offers facilities for inspecting and testing your routes.
5.1 Listing Existing Routes
To get a complete list of the available routes in your application, visit
http://localhost:3000/rails/info/routes in your browser while your server is running in the
development environment. You can also execute the
rails routes command in your terminal to produce the same output.
Both methods will list all of your routes, in the same order that they appear in
config/routes.rb. For each route, you'll see:
- The route name (if any)
- The HTTP verb used (if the route doesn't respond to all verbs)
- The URL pattern to match
- The routing parameters for the route
For example, here's a small section of the
rails routes output for a RESTful route:
users GET /users(.:format) users#index
POST /users(.:format) users#create
new_user GET /users/new(.:format) users#new
edit_user GET /users/:id/edit(.:format) users#edit
|
You can search through your routes with the grep option: -g. This
outputs any routes that partially match the URL helper method name, the
HTTP verb, or the URL path.
$ bin/rails routes -g new_comment
$ bin/rails routes -g POST
$ bin/rails routes -g admin
|
If you only want to see the routes that map to a specific controller, there's the -c option.
$ bin/rails routes -c users
$ bin/rails routes -c admin/users
$ bin/rails routes -c Comments
$ bin/rails routes -c Articles::CommentsController
|
You'll find that the output from rails routes is much more readable if you widen your terminal window until the output lines don't wrap.
5.2 Testing Routes
Routes should be included in your testing strategy (just like the rest of your application). Rails offers three
built-in assertions designed to make testing routes simpler:
assert_generates
assert_recognizes
assert_routing
5.2.1 The assert_generates Assertion
assert_generates
asserts that a particular set of options generate a particular path and
can be used with default routes or custom routes. For example:
assert_generates '/photos/1', { controller: 'photos', action: 'show', id: '1' }
assert_generates '/about', controller: 'pages', action: 'about'
|
5.2.2 The assert_recognizes Assertion
assert_recognizes is the inverse of
assert_generates. It asserts that a given path is recognized and routes it to a particular spot in your application. For example:
assert_recognizes({ controller: 'photos', action: 'show', id: '1' }, '/photos/1')
|
You can supply a
:method argument to specify the HTTP verb:
assert_recognizes({ controller: 'photos', action: 'create' }, { path: 'photos', method: :post })
|
5.2.3 The assert_routing Assertion
The
assert_routing
assertion checks the route both ways: it tests that the path generates
the options, and that the options generate the path. Thus, it combines
the functions of
assert_generates and
assert_recognizes:
assert_routing({ path: 'photos', method: :post }, { controller: 'photos', action: 'create' })