Rails Routing Setup

Question

I'm stuck on a routing problem within a Rails 3.0.x application.

What I'm trying to achieve is a URL like /registration/renew/1 . The idea is that this would renew registration for a member with id = 1.

So to that end I setup the following routes

routes.rb

match "registration/renew" => "registration#renew"

The user arrives at the registration page via a navigation link such as

<%= link_to "Full Member", registration_renew_path(@member)  %>

The problem is that the generated link comes out like: /registration/renew.1 which indicates that the :format extension is being created and appended. Which then I tried to make optional via inclusion of a responder argument :format as per the following matching rule

match "registration/renew(/:id(.:format))" => "registration#new"

but this fails with

No route matches {:controller=>"registration", :action=>"renew", :format=>#<Member id: 1,.....

So at this point I rechecked the Rails Guides etc but still couldn't get to generate the URL I was after.

Only when I had the two rules:

match "registration/renew" => "registration#renew"
match "registration(/:action(/:id(.:format)))" => "registration#renew"

in the routes file would the URL /registration/renew/1 get me to the page. Although I didn't feel that this was the correct, tidy solution.

The final question(s)

1. What should be the link_to method
2. What is the correct routes.rb entry

Thanks in Advance

Answer 1

You just need pass args explicitly and define the name of this route

match "registration(/:action(/:id(.:format)))" => "registration#renew", :as => registration_renew

With only id

<%= link_to "Full Member", registration_renew_path(:id => @member.id)  %>

With id and format

<%= link_to "Full Member", registration_renew_path(:id => @member.id, :format => :xml)  %>

Without id

<%= link_to "Full Member", registration_renew_path  %>

You don't need the route without params in your example.

Answer 2

You can mention the controller and action in link_to method

<%=link_to "Full Member", :controller => "registration", :action => "renew", :id => @member.id %> 

Please refer the following tutorial for more options.

http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/UrlHelper.html#method-i-link_to