Question

How can I render after executing an action in a restful controller instead of redirecting.

I have a controller with standard actions, and I added a special action that adds data to the resource in question, via a form on the #show page (Think comments on a post). I am validating the input from the form and want to re-render the show action on error and redirect to the show action on success.

I want to render to save the user from inputting their info twice, but when I try to render the show action with an error in the flash[:notice] I get an error saying that I am not specifying an ID. When I do specify an ID, it tries to render a new template that doesn’t exist yet.

I am thinking that it should be a as simple as:

def add_comment   if my_validation?     save the object     redirect_to :action => 'show', :id => params[:id]   else     render :action => 'show', :id => params[:id]   end end 

This is not my actual code, just something I put together just now as an example.

Answer 1

The best way is to re-render the :new

def create   @obj = TheObject.new(params[:object])   render :action => :new unless @obj.save end 

And in the new.html.erb

<% form_for :obj,    :url => object_url(@obj), :html => {:method => :post} do |f| %>    <%= f.text_field :name %> <% end %> 

That way, the inputs in the form will be pre-filled with what the user entered.