# More RESTlessness: "unbalanced" routes **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [August 21, 2007, 4:34am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/more-restlessness-unbalanced-routes/112583 "2007-08-21T04:34:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jay-levitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/a88e57/32.png) [@jay-levitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jay-levitt)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2007, 4:34am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/more-restlessness-unbalanced-routes/112583/1 "2007-08-21T04:34:59Z")
I’m working on an application (on Edge Rails) that has a really long user profile page - viewed, of course, with a GET to /users/:id. The editing side of things needs to be broken up into four logically-grouped screens - say, contact info, work history, education, and personal info. These screens are essentially update-only - their “show” counterpart is the whole profile at /users/:id. And the update can only be performed by current\_user, so the :id is superfluous. There is no Create function, and there is no Delete function. So far, I see only two choices: 1. Don’t use RESTful routes at all. Change the GET to /users/show/:id, and do the updates with POSTs to /users/edit\_contact\_info, /users/edit\_education, etc. Put it all in users\_controller. This is the path I’ve been taking, but it loses some of the simply\_helpful magic. 2. Create RESTful routes, and manually draw them in routes.rb. This seems brittle, and I have to lie about (e.g.) “contact\_info” belonging to the collection instead of the member, since I don’t want the :id in the URL. Plus, I think that means each of the four mini-edit pages has to go in its own, one-action controller! Ugly. Is there a third way? Jay L. ---
**Author:** ![jay-levitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/a88e57/32.png) [@jay-levitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jay-levitt)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2007, 3:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/more-restlessness-unbalanced-routes/112583/2 "2007-08-21T15:59:34Z")
Sure. The Rails implementation of REST allows you to extend the RESTful routes with a similar concept to choice #2 but without “lying.” Say you want a unique url that updates _only_ the contact\_info of a user. You can extend the user routes in routes.rb like this: map.resources :users, :member=\>{:update\_contact\_info\_of=\>:post} What this says is that there should be a url for an individual user resource (a _member_ of the users collection) with an action mapping to “update\_contact\_info\_of” that accepts only POST data. Just in case it’s not obvious, :member is a hash for defining actions for individual resources, keyed by the name of an action and with a value of the allowed http methods (:get, :put, :post, :delete, :any). By extending the users routes in that way, the form\_for that wraps the contact info can looks like this: \<% form\_for :user, update\_contact\_info\_of\_user\_path(@user) do |f| %\> … \<% end %\> HTH, AndyV ---
**Author:** ![jay-levitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/a88e57/32.png) [@jay-levitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jay-levitt)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2007, 9:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/more-restlessness-unbalanced-routes/112583/3 "2007-08-21T21:46:46Z")
On Aug 21, 2007, at 8:59 AM, AndyV wrote: > of the allowed http methods (:get, :put, :post, :delete, :any). > To me, this smells like RPC. There’s a verb in your URL, “update”. > You don’t need that, you’ve already said you’re updating because of PUT. What I would do is define a singleton resource for profile. map.resource :profile The view for that profile is broken up, I gather from the original question, into multiple forms. They can all PUT to the same reasource, though, /profile. There’s nothing that says a PUT/update has to include ALL the data for the resource. Personally, I would add extra bits onto my profile resource, so a GET of /profile/contact\_info would show the view for editing the contact info and /profile/work\_history would show the view for editing the work history. Rails routing is extremely flexible. There is almost never a “has to go somewhere I don’t want it to” with Rails routing. HTH, Michael ---
**Author:** ![jay-levitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/a88e57/32.png) [@jay-levitt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jay-levitt)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2007, 11:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/more-restlessness-unbalanced-routes/112583/4 "2007-09-25T23:07:13Z")
See below… Michael D. Ivey wrote: > > it’s not obvious, :member is a hash for defining actions for You could also map.resources :users, :collection =\> {:contact\_info =\> :put}