form_for with custom action not rendering

Question

I am working on a very simple project to learn Rails better, coming from a C# background. It seems to be rendering the incorrect form action with my code.

It currently has 2 models which are using the routes of

  resources :leaks
  resources :passwords

This is to give me the basic routes:

Matts-MacBook-Pro:pwcrack-webgui mandreko$ rvm 1.9.3 do rake routes
        leaks GET    /leaks(.:format)              leaks#index
              POST   /leaks(.:format)              leaks#create
     new_leak GET    /leaks/new(.:format)          leaks#new
    edit_leak GET    /leaks/:id/edit(.:format)     leaks#edit
         leak GET    /leaks/:id(.:format)          leaks#show
              PUT    /leaks/:id(.:format)          leaks#update
              DELETE /leaks/:id(.:format)          leaks#destroy
    passwords GET    /passwords(.:format)          passwords#index
              POST   /passwords(.:format)          passwords#create
 new_password GET    /passwords/new(.:format)      passwords#new
edit_password GET    /passwords/:id/edit(.:format) passwords#edit
     password GET    /passwords/:id(.:format)      passwords#show
              PUT    /passwords/:id(.:format)      passwords#update
              DELETE /passwords/:id(.:format)      passwords#destroy

In my leakscontroller.rb, I have 2 methods, to try create a new leak:

def new
  @leak = Leak.new

  respond_to do |format|
    format.html # new.html.erb
    format.xml { render :xml => @leak }
  end
end

def create
  @leak = Leak.new(params[:leak])  
  if @leak.save  
    redirect_to @leak, :notice => "Successfully created leak."  
  else  
    render :action => 'new'  
  end  
end

And lastly, in my new.html.erb, I have:

<%= form_for @leak, :url => { :action => "create" } do |f| %>
    <div class="field>
        <%= f.label :source %>
        <%= f.text_field :source %>
    </div>
    <div class="field">
        <%= f.label :file %>
        <%= f.file_field :file %>
    </div>
    <div>
        <%= f.submit %>
    </div>
<% end %>

I would think that with this view, it would create a form with action=Create, but the following code is generated:

<form accept-charset="UTF-8" action="/leaks" class="new_leak" enctype="multipart/form-data" id="new_leak" method="post">

Any clue why this would be the case?

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 26 '12 at 01:20

Because of Rails' restful nature and some serious metaprogramming, the form_for helper when using with an instance of ActiveRecord object, assumes that a simple:

<% form_for @leak do |f| %>

When submitted would make a POST to the create action on your controller.
If you need a more specific form, that do not goes according to the default patterns a Rails App follows, you can use a form_tag helper.
For example if you have a secret_action in your controller, you create a route in your routes.rb.

resources :leaks do
  collection do
    post :secret_action
  end
end

And a form like this:

<% form_tag secret_action_leaks_path do %>

And you get the behavior you expect. Once you understand the basic of routing, paths, forms in Rails, you would do these things without even thinking.
Try reading some of this: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html

Thanks, I didn't realize rails was doing some magic to make a "virtual" POST to /leaks/create. I'm still not sure how it works, but it does. My problem was actually deeper down, with failing my own validation. But this pointed me in the right direction! — mandreko, Jun 26 '12 at 23:39

form_for with custom action not rendering

1 Answers1