Render a polymorphic partial with optional belongs_to/nested inherited resources (Rails 3.1)

Question

Trying to do something really simple--could someone please provide the correct incantation?

Basically we have Biscuit optionally nested in User so we'd like routes like:

/biscuits
/biscuits/1
/users/2/biscuits
/users/2/biscuits/3

etc.

We have views like biscuits/index which calls a partial biscuits/_index to render the list. I'd like to call this same partial from the user's profile view, users/edit, but I'm unclear on which resource_url helpers to use:

resources :users do
  resources :biscuits
end

class BiscuitsController < InheritedResources::Base
   belongs_to :user, optional: true
end

users/edit.html.haml:

= render 'biscuits/index', biscuits: @user.biscuits.all

biscuits/_index.html.haml:

  - biscuits.each do |biscuit|
    %tr
      %td= biscuit.title
      %td= link_to image_tag(biscuit.file_url(:thumb,:large)), resource_url(biscuit)
      %td
        = link_to 'Show', resource_url(biscuit)
        &nbsp;|&nbsp;
      %td
        = link_to 'Edit', edit_resource_url(biscuit)

This partial works fine when called from the BiscuitsController at /users/1/biscuits, but it bombs with NoMethodError in Users#edit undefined method 'user_url' for #<UsersController> when called from the UsersController at /users/1/edit -- seems the resource_url refers to the user here not the biscuits collection.

How could I force the resource/collection to be any collection of resources, regardless of the current controller?

What's the better way to do this?

Also, say we override UsersController#collection and #resource, are these methods on the UsersController called if the route invokes the BiscuitsController via /users/1/biscuits ? Or is only one Controller per request ever instantiated by Rails?

also note that `rake routes` shows the nested routes, `/user/:user_id/biscuits/:id` but does not show the optional non-nested `/biscuits/:id` -- is that expected behavior or does it indicate a problem? — tribalvibes, Aug 23 '11 at 09:29

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 25 '11 at 12:37

regarding routes behavior - as far as I know, if you want to use a route both nested and non-nested, you really should define it twice. i.e.

resources :users do
  resources :biscuits
end
resources :biscuits

that said, it seems to be considered better practice to nest resources only if there is no sense to access them without nesting. if you leave only the non-nested routes for biscuits it might solve your problem.

regarding resource_url - your references to resource_url and collection methods indicate you are using a plugin or gem, it's hard to know what's going wrong without knowing what plugin you are using especially since it seems to be the source of your problem.

substituting "resource_url" for a helper along the lines of

def nested_resource_path(*args)
  args = args.compact
  return args[0] if args.size == 1
  return args
end

called thus:

nested_resource_path(@user, biscuit) and
nested_resource_path(:edit, @user, biscuit)

where @user is nil when accessing BiscuitsController#index
should work.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 09 '12 at 12:35

1

chuck in a shallow route, that is:

resources :users, :shallow => true do
  resources :biscuits
end

then do rake routes and see if that does the trick

answered Mar 09 '12 at 12:35

Khoa Nguyen

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Render a polymorphic partial with optional belongs_to/nested inherited resources (Rails 3.1)

2 Answers2