Question

Gists of controller code at bottom of page

I have a simple rails nesting project that I’m practicing with and I’m having an issue that I can’t seem to spot.

When I visit the url: localhost:3000/authors/1/books I get ALL the books – not the books that correspond to the author with an id=1.

Here is some of my code:

I have an Author model and controller, and a Book author and controller:

class Author < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :books
end


class Book < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :author
end

The routes file looks like this:

resources :authors do
    resources :books    
  end

Here is the migration for Books:

class CreateBooks < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    create_table :books do |t|
      t.string :title
      t.integer :author_id

      t.timestamps
    end
  end

  def self.down
    drop_table :books
  end
end

It contains an attribute for author_id

I also have this code in the Books _form.html.erb file:

<div class="field">
    <%= f.label :author_id %><br />
    <%= f.collection_select(:author_id, Author.all, :id, :first_name) %>
  </div>

I am able to choose an author from the drop-down box and save it successfully. The database shows that the author_id is indeed being saved to the corresponding Book model.

When I run rake routes I get this as one of the routes:

author_books GET    /authors/:author_id/books(.:format)

But, when I try this url – I just get a listing of ALL books. Not books corresponding to the proper author.

Also, I have my controllers setup to return JSON and when I put localhost:3000/authors.json it returns the proper JSON object, but when I put localhost:3000/authors/1/books.json it returns ‘null‘

Here is a screen shot of my current database listings to show that the data is definitely there:

Can you see anything that may be causing the problem??? I can provide more code if you need it.

---

EDIT

After running rails console I get the correct data – so I’m not sure why the route is still not working:

irb(main):002:0> Author.find(1).books
=> [#<Book id: 1, title: "Carrie", author_id: 1, created_at: "2012-01-08 21:20:57", updated_at: "201
2-01-08 21:20:57">]

Here is a Gist of complete routes: https://gist.github.com/1580058

Here is the Books controller: https://gist.github.com/1580064

Here is the Authors controller: https://gist.github.com/1580134

Sorry, just realized I miss-worded the original question up top – I’m getting the whole list of Books, not Authors – corrected

Answer 1

You need to show us your index action in the controller. I’m guessing you have Book.all… You need

@author = Author.includes(:books).find(params[:author_id])

you also might want

@books = @author.books

Also in your show method make sure you do this

@author = Author.find(params[:author_id])
@book = @author.books.find(params[:id])

instead of

@book = Book.find(params[:id])