Question

I am learning rails and am toying with a simple web-app that integrates with flickr to search photos based on user given criteria and store the query in a search history table.

I am seeking the best or ‘rails’ way of handling this. Should I setup a controller and non-resource routes that handle the search and store the data in a custom table; or should I create a resource for queries with a resource route and an additional path for search?

Answer 1

My thoughts:

In config/routes.rb:

match '/search/:query' => 'search#search', :as => 'search'

Create a SearchController:

rails generate controller search

In app/controllers/search_controller.rb:

class SearchController < ApplicationController
  def search
    # Use params[:query] to perform the search
  end
end

For example, a query for “apples” would appear as: http://example.com/search/apples

You can generate links to queries with: search_path('apples')