Question

Given the following routes:

resource :public_profile do
  resources :posts
end

resource :private_profile do
  resources :posts
end

How can I, in the PostsController, determine which singular resource I am nested within?

Answer 1

One way you could do this is by creating 2 more controllers that extend some main PostsController, and use

resource :public_profile do
  resources :posts, controller: "PublicPostsController"
end

resource :private_profile do
  resources :posts, controller: "PrivatePostsController"
end

You could even do this in a variety of ways. For example, maybe it makes sense to have

class ProfileController < ApplicationController; end
class PostsController < ApplicationController; end

class Private::ProfileController < ProfileController; end
class Private::PostsController < PostsController; end

class Public::ProfileController < ProfileController; end
class Public::PostsController < PostsController; end

with routing

resource :public_profile, controller: "Public::ProfileController" do
  resources :posts, controller: "Public::PostsController"
end

resource :private_profile, controller: "Private::ProfileController" do
  resources :posts, controller: "Private::PostsController"
end

Regardless of how you set this up, you can easily ‘know’ what resource you’re nested within because you’ll actually be running within a separate controller specific to that nesting and can thus have a perfect place for logic specific to that nesting. For general logic, you’d put that into the parent PostsController.

---

Another way you could do this is by adding a before_filter to PostsController like

before_filter :check_nesting

private
  def check_nesting
    @is_public_profile = params.include?(:public)
  end

and have routing like

resource :public_profile, public: true do
  resources :posts, controller: "PublicPostsController"
end

resource :private_profile, private: true do
  resources :posts, controller: "PrivatePostsController"
end

I don’t care for this approach though.