# Nested and non-nested resources, and admin restrictions

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nested-and-non-nested-resources-and-admin-restrictions/154041>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [November 24, 2008, 8:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nested-and-non-nested-resources-and-admin-restrictions/154041 "2008-11-24T20:14:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nickh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/7ea924/32.png) [@nickh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nickh)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 8:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nested-and-non-nested-resources-and-admin-restrictions/154041/1 "2008-11-24T20:14:35Z")

</div>

This is a fairly long question, but it’s a common one that applies to  
a lot of applications. Here goes!

Many apps have/want a setup similar to this:

1. ModelA has many ModelBs (Eg: User has many Photos).
2. Admins CRUD all photos at /photos and beyond (Eg: /photos/1/edit).
3. Admins CRUD User photos at /user/1/photos and beyond.
4. Users CRUD their photos at /account/photos and beyond.

Some people don’t bother with #2, because photos can be CRUDed via #3.  
However, I want #2 because it gives you a higher/broader view of the  
Photos resource.

I’m trying to figure out an efficient, DRY/semi-DRY way of  
implementing this. At the moment:

For #2 above, I’ve:

1. Restricted PhotosController to admins.
2. Created a Photos resource (map.resources :photos).

For #3 above, I’ve:

1. Nested a Photos resource within the Users resource:  
map.resources :users, :has\_many =\> :photos

For #4 above, I’ve:

1. Created Account::PhotosController, which restricts photos to the  
current user (account).
2. Nested Account::PhotosController within the Account singleton  
resource:  
map.resource :account do |account|  
account.resources :photos, :controller =\> ‘account/photos’  
end

Everything but #3 works perfectly. /user/1/photos calls  
PhotosController#index , which finds all photos, rather than finding  
only photos belonging to user 1.

I’ve come up with a few solutions, but don’t feel that any of them are  
ideal.

Solution #1:  
Create a whole new controller, which finds photos within the specified  
user. However, this would duplicate 95% of PropertiesController, which  
is pretty dirty.

Solution #2:  
Create a method in PhotosController that abstracts the finding of  
photos. However, this feels wrong because it’s mixing functionality  
between two different resources (photos vs user-photos).  
See [http://pastie.org/pastes/322733](http://pastie.org/pastes/322733)

Solution #3:  
Create a new controller which inherits from PhotosController, and add  
a bit of logic to PhotosController to prevent it from finding photos  
when they’ve already been found.  
See [http://pastie.org/322734](http://pastie.org/322734)

Solution #4:  
Use the resource\_controller plugin. However, I find that r\_c limits  
what I can do in some controller actions. For example, r\_c only  
provides customisable failure scenarios for #create, #update and  
#destroy, while I need to customise every action’s failure scenario.

So, what do you guys think of those solutions, and are there any other  
solutions that are more ideal?

Cheers,  
Nick