Question regarding controller actions (And a little bit of REST)

Rails
1

Hi Guys,

I am developing a blog system with Rails and I have a question about the
following matter:

My client wants me to create an approve and disapprove action for
the
comments.

So, I did create two actions in the rails comment controller called by a
*
put* method, since the only thing they do is change the approved
collumn
at the database. I am still not familiar with REST, so I decided to ask
what
you would do in a situation like this.

Another way I was thinking is create an action update and there I would
handle if I get a params[:approve] or a params[:disapprove]. I know it
is a
quite simple question, but I did research, but I think I didn’t find the
right keywords to look for it.

Thanks for any inputs in advance.
Marco Antonio

2

I would try to use 2 radio buttons, or a select box with values:

  • Approved
  • Not approved
  • … other states

Then, you embed the processing of these values in the UPDATE action.
For a select box, this might help you to start:

  • <%= select(:blogpost, "status_id", Status.all.collect {|p| [ p.name, p.id ] }) %>

    • hph,

    patrick

    3

    Thank you guys.

    Bill, you helped me a lot. That was exactly what I needed to hear.

    Well, I came here once again just to share this article that I found
    that
    answers my questions too. In case someone have the same question.

    http://dathompson.blogspot.com/2008/07/restful-rails-passing-url-parameters.html

    http://dathompson.blogspot.com/2008/07/restful-rails-passing-url-parameters.html
    Regards,
    Marco Antonio

    4

    Hi Marco,

    On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 5:29 AM, Marco Antonio F.
    [email protected] wrote:

    handle if I get a params[:approve] or a params[:disapprove].
    I think, in the end, you’re making a choice is between:

    /blog/23/comments/4/approve

    and

    /blog/23/comments/4?approve

    From a REST perspective, the latter is probably slightly more
    preferred. Fielding’s dissertation does not provide a prescription at
    this level of detail, focusing instead on the need for unique resource
    identifiers. In the sense that the resource itself is more clearly
    identified in your proposal, I would venture an opinion that it is
    more RESTful than your client’s proposal. But I wouldn’t get wrapped
    around the axle with a client on that point.

    From a code maintenance perspective,however, the latter is much more
    preferable in that it requires only one method (update) instead of two
    (approve/disapprove). Additionally, the Rails routing engine
    supports / generates the CRUD methods by default, whereas you will
    need to do extra work to support your client’s request. That reduced
    complexity translates to $$$ which, in my experience, typically
    engages clients instantly.

    HTH,
    Bill