Question

I am working through this tutorial -> http://ruby.railstutorial.org/chapters/filling-in-the-layout

You can experience the problem here -> intense-dusk-3202.herokuapp.com/

When I click on the “Home” link in the header it tries to take me to http://intense-dusk-3202.herokuapp.com/root_path instead of just http://intense-dusk-3202.herokuapp.com/

Here is my routes.rb

SampleApp::Application.routes.draw do
  get "users/new"

  root :to => 'static_pages#home'

match '/signup', to: 'users#new'

  match '/help', to: 'static_pages#help'

  match '/about', to: 'static_pages#about'

  match '/contact', to: 'static_pages#contact'

end

Here is my app/views/layouts/_header.html.erb file:

<header class="navbar navbar-fixed-top navbar-inverse">
  <div class="navbar-inner">
    <div class="container">
      <%= link_to "sample app", 'root_path', id: "logo" %>
      <nav>
        <ul class="nav pull-right">
          <li><%= link_to "Home",    'root_path' %></li>
          <li><%= link_to "Help",    'help_path' %></li>
          <li><%= link_to "Sign in", '#' %></li>
        </ul>
      </nav>
    </div>
  </div>
</header>

Do you need to see anything else before you can help me?

Answer 1

You shouldn’t quote those helpers:

<header class="navbar navbar-fixed-top navbar-inverse">
  <div class="navbar-inner">
    <div class="container">
      <%= link_to "sample app", root_path, id: "logo" %>
      <nav>
        <ul class="nav pull-right">
          <li><%= link_to "Home",    root_path %></li>
          <li><%= link_to "Help",    help_path %></li>
          <li><%= link_to "Sign in", '#' %></li>
        </ul>
      </nav>
    </div>
  </div>
</header>

root_path, help_path, and all other named route helpers are actually ruby methods. Just call them directly, don’t put quotes around them.