Question

I just recently started programming in Ruby on Rails, and I was wondering if some of you could look over my routes.rb file that I am using so far and tell me if I am over thinking this.

I am aware of the whole RESTful approach in RoR and I am trying to stick to it, but I am not sure if I am on track. So far my application only has the following functionality:

• User registration
• User activation (via email link)
• User can request activation to be resent
• User log in
• User log out
• User requests password reset (gets an email)
• Basic UCP (change email and password)

I am using a lot of redirect_to *_url and *_path, so I want a lot of named routes. I am trying to explicitly declare only routes that are allowed. Thanks for your input.

MyApp::Application.routes.draw do
  get 'home' => 'pages#index', :as => 'home'
  get 'testing' => 'pages#testing', :as => 'testing'

  get 'register' => 'users#new', :as => 'register'
  post 'users/create'
  resources :users, :only => [
    :new,
    :create
  ]

  get 'activation' => 'activations#new', :as => 'activation'
  get 'activate/:token' => 'activations#activate', :as => 'activate'
  post 'activations/edit'
  resources :activations, :only => [
    :new,
    :activate,
    :edit
  ]

  get 'login' => 'sessions#new', :as => 'login'
  get 'logout' => 'sessions#destroy', :as => 'logout'
  get 'sessions/destroy'
  resources :sessions, :only => [
    :new,
    :create,
    :destroy
  ]

  get 'forgot_password' => 'resets#new', :as => 'forgot_password'
  post 'resets/create'
  get 'activate_password/:token' => 'resets#activate', :as => 'activate_password'
  put 'save_password' => 'resets#save', :as => 'save_password'
  resources :resets, :only => [
    :new,
    :create,
    :activate,
    :save
  ]

  get 'ucp' => 'ucp#show', :as => 'ucp'
  post 'ucp_update' => 'ucp#update', :as => 'ucp_update'
  resources :ucp, :only => [
    :show,
    :update
  ]

  root :to => 'pages#index'
end

Answer 1

When you use resources, it automatically makes named routes for you. I won’t go through your entire routes file, but one example:

  get 'activation' => 'activations#new', :as => 'activation'
  get 'activate/:token' => 'activations#activate', :as => 'activate'
  post 'activations/edit'
  resources :activations, :only => [
    :new,
    :activate,
    :edit
  ]

Could be:

resources :activations, :only => [:new, :edit] do
  get 'activate', :on => :member
end

which will produce new_activation_path, edit_activation_path, and activate_activation_path

Go to the Rails Routing Guide for a lot of cool stuff you can do in routes. For example, if you want to use “register” instead of “new” for your Users paths:

 resources :users, :only => [:new, :create], :path_names => [:new => 'register']