Question

I want to declare some methods from a different controller in ApplicationController‘s filter like below:

In ApplicationContoller

before_filter :authorize, :except => [:index, :show, :different_controller_method]

where :different_controller_method is defined in UserController. Can we do this?

Answer 1

Normally this should work. Make sure you are using symbols, as @jdl is saying.

Most of the times we use a different approach though. In your ApplicationController you write

before_filter :authorize

So that by definition all access is authorized. In your UsersController you can then add an exception:

skip_before_filter :authorize, :only => [:index, :show, :different_controller_method]

Hope this helps.