# Optionally Nested Resources

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/optionally-nested-resources/155485>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [December 12, 2008, 8:51am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/optionally-nested-resources/155485 "2008-12-12T08:51:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Daniel\_Cestari](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/f08c70/32.png) [@Daniel\_Cestari](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Daniel_Cestari)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 8:51am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/optionally-nested-resources/155485/1 "2008-12-12T08:51:33Z")

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Hello,

I have this model.

city has\_many stores  
store belongs\_to city

I created resources for them and mapped them as such, using nested  
resources:

map.resources :cities, :has\_many =\> :stores

But I wanted to make the stores available independant from the city,  
so I added:

map.resources :stores

And, at this point I wonder:

- There is an algorithmic way to convert a normal resource to a nested  
one:
  1. edit config/routes.rb and add the :has\_many or the block, to  
route it as nested.
  2. change all named routes to, in this case, city\_stores\_  
{path,url}.
  3. edit controller, normally add a before\_filter to get or find  
the parent resource.
  4. edit all find and new methods from the controller to use the  
parent.childs collection,  
to build or find the proper children resources.

So, is there a simple way to achieve this double purpose controller  
without having to  
create a new CityStoreController?

Any, howto, tutorial, screencast, mail, forum, blog-post, would be  
very appreciated!

Thanks for reading till here, and thanks A LOT for the help you can  
give.

–  
Daniel

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Daniel\_Cestari](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/f08c70/32.png) [@Daniel\_Cestari](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Daniel_Cestari)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 8:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/optionally-nested-resources/155485/2 "2008-12-12T20:32:03Z")

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> I have this model.
> 
> city has\_many stores  
> store belongs\_to city
> 
> I created resources for them and mapped them as such, using nested  
> resources:
> 
> map.resources :cities, :has\_many =\> :stores
> 
> But I wanted to make the stores available independant from the city,  
> so I added:  
> I think about nested resources as a way to scope (or protect) access  
> through another. In a previous framework that I used these were referred  
> to as “owned” objects. These “owned” objects would be ones that don’t  
> make sense, or have no value, apart from their “owner.”

Take “comments” for example: A comment might be related to a blog post.  
The comment has no real value apart from the post. It, therefore, makes  
a lot of sense to have access to the “comment” only through the related  
post.

However, in cases where a resource has value on it own. For example an  
employee might belong to a department, but the employee object has value  
completely apart from a department. Therefore, it makes sense for an  
employee object to be managed directly rather than though a department.

This later case sounds more like what you have. It would still be fine I  
suppose to nest it, but I don’t think I would. I think I would use a  
more direct approach for accessing the “stores” collection like simply  
going through the association from city.

Don’t confuse nested resources with associations. They are not the same  
thing, even though they both share the has\_many and belong\_to syntax.  
You don’t need nested resources everywhere your model has an  
association.