Question

I would like to hide or mask example.com/users/$ID/edit to be example.com/profile/edit.

config/routes.rb

resources :users

app/controllers/users_controller.rb

def edit
@user = User.find(params[:id])
end

---

I’ve tried adding the route

match '/profile/edit' => 'users#edit', :as => :edit_profile

but, when I visit example.com/profile/edit, the edit method complains about not being able to find the user’s ID.

Is there a way I can mask the ID from the browser?

Answer 1

If you’re trying to edit the current user’s profile you could use the following in your edit action:

    def edit
      @user = User.find_by_id( params[:id] ) || current_user
    end

This will first try to look up the user by the id parameter returning nil if it can’t find the user and if the return value is nil it will set @user to the return value of the current_user helper method. This assumes you’re using something like Devise which provides the current_user method to get the currently logged in user.

One other note. You should change match in your route to get to specify that only get requests are valid for the edit action.

    get 'profile/edit' => 'users#edit' , as: edit_profile

If you’re trying to prevent users from editing other people’s profiles you need something like the following after you load the user:

    redirect_to( root_path ) and return unless @user == current_user

This will keep the current user from editing another user’s profile.