Question

I am trying to make a row in a table link to the edit page. I know the links are being created, because I can print them out. I am close, but am missing something important. What do I change to make the link work properly?

<h1>Scouts</h1>
<p><%= button_to "Add a new Scout", new_scout_path, :method => :get %></p>
<div class="message-board">
  <table>
    <tr>
      <th>Name</th>
      <th>Rank</th>
      <th>Advancement Date</th>
      <th>Age</th>
    </tr>  

<% @scouts.each do |scout| %>
    <tr <% link_to edit_scout_path(scout) %> >
      <td><%= scout.name %></td>
      <td><%= scout.rank %></td>
      <td><%= scout.advancement %></td>
      <td><%= scout.age %></td>
    </tr>
<% end %>
  </table>
</div>

Answer 1

As Robin said, that’s invalid HTML. You probably shouldn’t do that.

I personally would put an onclick event on the tr using jQuery. The tr element would look like this:

<tr data-link="<%= edit_scout_path(scout) %>">
   ...
</tr>

And then the associated JavaScript (placed in a file such as app/assets/javascripts/scouts.js) would be something like this:

$("tr[data-link]").click(function() {
  window.location = $(this).data("link")
})

This would make all tr elements that have a data-link attribute act as if they were URLs in the most unobtrusive way I can think possible.