# Rails 2.0, REST Resources, Admin and DRY **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [December 27, 2007, 10:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-2-0-rest-resources-admin-and-dry/124284 "2007-12-27T10:39:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubenfonseca)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2007, 10:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-2-0-rest-resources-admin-and-dry/124284/1 "2007-12-27T10:39:58Z")
hi! I’m doing a blog engine in rails 2. I used the restful resources approach to create my initial ‘post’ and ‘comment’ models, and it is working very nice. However, I’m stuck with two problems, and I want to resolve them with the “Rails way” 🙂 - How to disable some verbs from the restful interface? You know, people should not be able to POST or DELETE on my blog posts. However, it doesn’t seem pretty to me to go to the PostController and simply delete those methods, because the routes still appear and can be called (resulting in a beautiful error). How should I deal with this? Should I change the methods to return an error instead? - How to make an admin area and keep DRYing? After creating all my models, I now need an Admin area just to simple scaffold, creating posts and comment approval. But how do I do this and keep DRY? On one hand, I want to keep the admin area under the ‘/ admin’ prefix. But on the other hand, I don’t know how can I keep using the created resources without repeating myself! Please, what is the “Rails way” of doing this thing? On the ideal world, I put filters in my resources, limiting the admin operations to the admin users, and the /admin namespace somewhat maps/ points to those resources instead… Please help me clarifying my mind 🙂 Cheers, Rúben ---
**Author:** ![rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubenfonseca)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2007, 11:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-2-0-rest-resources-admin-and-dry/124284/2 "2007-12-27T11:44:22Z")
look here: [http://www.akitaonrails.com/2007/12/12/rolling-with-rails-2-0-the-first-full-tutorial-part-2](http://www.akitaonrails.com/2007/12/12/rolling-with-rails-2-0-the-first-full-tutorial-part-2) you will get a lot of answers. the tutorial starts here: > **[Rolling with Rails 2.0 - The First Full Tutorial - Part 1 | AkitaOnRails.com](https://www.akitaonrails.com/2007/12/12/rolling-with-rails-2-0-the-first-full-tutorial)** > > for brazilians: click here. > I am very happy to see that my Rails 2.0 Screencast was very well received. More than 1,500 unique visitors watched it... On Dec 27, 7:24 am, Ruben F. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > scaffold, creating posts and comment approval. But how do I do this > Cheers, > R ---
**Author:** ![rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubenfonseca)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2007, 1:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-2-0-rest-resources-admin-and-dry/124284/3 "2007-12-27T13:24:05Z")
All: I am in the same boat. “How to make an admin area and keep DRYing”… Also, I have been looking for something that basically shows all the stuff you can and should do related to REST and routing (named routes, nested, namespaces, etc.) with Rails 2.0 and I am coming up empty. Any insight or links to insight would be deeply appreciated. Thanks Resident M. On Dec 27, 4:43 am, Bruno R. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > I’m doing a blog engine in rails 2. I used the restful resources > > PostController and simply delete those methods, because the routes > > using the created resources without repeating myself! Please, what is > > the “Rails way” of doing this thing? > > > On the ideal world, I put filters in my resources, limiting the admin > > operations to the admin users, and the /admin namespace somewhat maps/ > > points to those resources instead… Please help me clarifying my > > mind 🙂 > > > Cheers, > > R ---
**Author:** ![rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubenfonseca)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2007, 2:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-2-0-rest-resources-admin-and-dry/124284/4 "2007-12-27T14:57:58Z")
On 2007/12/27, at 10:43, Bruno R. wrote: > indeed I found! excelent tutorials! thank you! however, my fears became real… what Akita really do is mannually copy the resource generated files inside the admin namespace, efectivly repeating code… goodbye DRI, now I have _two_ pieces of code to mantain ☹ anyway, I learned a lot about rails 2 with those two posts! thank you! Rúben ---
**Author:** ![rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubenfonseca)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2007, 1:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-2-0-rest-resources-admin-and-dry/124284/5 "2007-12-27T13:54:33Z")
Hi, Answer to the second question inlined below: On Dec 27, 2007 11:24 AM, Ruben F. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > - How to disable some verbs from the restful interface? > After creating all my models, I now need an Admin area just to simple > scaffold, creating posts and comment approval. But how do I do this > and keep DRY? On one hand, I want to keep the admin area under the ‘/ > admin’ prefix. But on the other hand, I don’t know how can I keep > using the created resources without repeating myself! Please, what is > the “Rails way” of doing this thing? > > On the ideal world, I put filters in my resources, limiting the admin > operations to the admin users, and the /admin namespace somewhat maps/ > points to those resources instead… Please help me clarifying my > mind 🙂 You may check the following articles: [http://www.fallenrogue.com/articles/178-Creating-a-RESTful-admin-section-in-Rails](http://www.fallenrogue.com/articles/178-Creating-a-RESTful-admin-section-in-Rails) [http://www.fallenrogue.com/articles/181-Creating-a-RESTful-admin-section-in-Rails-with-2-controllers](http://www.fallenrogue.com/articles/181-Creating-a-RESTful-admin-section-in-Rails-with-2-controllers) I have not yet tried them myself bu they seem to be reasonable. It would be great it you can try and provide feedback here again. > Cheers, > Rúben HTH, – Ersin Er ---
**Author:** ![rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubenfonseca)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2007, 3:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-2-0-rest-resources-admin-and-dry/124284/6 "2007-12-27T15:53:14Z")
On Dec 27, 2007 2:53 PM, Ersin Er [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > approach to create my initial ‘post’ and ‘comment’ models, and it is > > still appear and can be called (resulting in a beautiful error). How > > the “Rails way” of doing this thing? > > I have not yet tried them myself bu they seem to be reasonable. It > would be great it you can try and provide feedback here again. Also: [http://groups.google.ca/group/rubyonrails-talk/browse\_thread/thread/6b15ff7beb729cf1](http://groups.google.ca/group/rubyonrails-talk/browse_thread/thread/6b15ff7beb729cf1) > > Cheers, > > Rúben > > HTH, > > – > Ersin Er – Ersin Er ---
**Author:** ![rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubenfonseca)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2007, 9:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-2-0-rest-resources-admin-and-dry/124284/7 "2007-12-27T21:31:57Z")
since you need different urls for different actions you might consider not to use map.resource and just register the routes to the different actions using ‘/admin’ when needed. named route (creates admin\_post\_url method) map.admin\_post ‘/admin/post/:id’, :controller=\>‘post’ , :action =\> ‘edit’, :conditions =\> { :method =\> :get } normal route but with specific method (you might call it with the same admin\_post\_url and :method=\>‘put’) map.connect ‘/admin/post/:id’, :controller=\>‘post’ , :action =\> ‘update’, :conditions =\> { :method =\> :put } This does not require two controllers. The authentication part you will have to figure out with some plugin. I have heard of this one: [http://weblog.techno-weenie.net/2006/8/1/restful-authentication-plugin](http://weblog.techno-weenie.net/2006/8/1/restful-authentication-plugin) but have not used yet… On 27 dez, 15:43, Nathan E. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ---
**Author:** ![rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubenfonseca)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2007, 9:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-2-0-rest-resources-admin-and-dry/124284/8 "2007-12-27T21:33:42Z")
Recently i’m working on a project when i have more than just admin and normal users, and all the work was made with single controllers for all features. I use some very usefull techniques, that i will apreciate criticisms. On this project, not just verbs is allowed/denied, but data change following the user role. First, i use before\_filters to make access control, based on roles, tools categories and functions (at now it’s just C-R-U-D). A migration categorize all actions on the system (a biggest work, walking through controllers path and identifying true actions…). ACL was made across relationship between roles, functions and tool’s categories, all category have their own function (CRUD again). The simple exclusion of verbs not work how was spoken on first email in this tread because links and other things will still pointing to actions a errors will be raised. To fix this problems, i just write a smallest plugin, that overwrite link\_to\*\*\* helpers, returning “” if the user has no access to the specific functionality. To test this access restrictions i add useful methods like canCreate? or canUpdate? to user model. The biggest problem was change all data on the system based on the roles, because the logic behind the scenes was very deeply: some roles has hierarchically restrictions, other roles has no restrictions, etc… Add to this scenario, the fact that the system need information’s filters (the user select specific parent data, and all tree of data bellow this parent data will be restricted to)! … for this purpose i work with around\_filters and with\_scope… An ugly but usefull code that wraps all the application data. I speak all this things because i think that this problem is not so restrict to anti-DRY pattern, or this isn’t about REST in self. Keep your code clean on real applications that have real roles relationships is very difficult, and sincerely i think that REST is not so useful on this case. I am not speaking against use REST (i really understand how REST can help us)… The fact is that REST or no REST, the problem was the same and restriction REST based will not help you. P.S.: just think about edit action! This is called through GET action, but users that can’t update, should not access this action… On Dec 27, 2007 3:43 PM, Nathan E. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > anyway, I learned a lot about rails 2 with those two posts! thank you! > > > > R�ben > > – > Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). > > > – Everton J. Carpes Mobile: +55 53 9129.4593 MSN: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid UIN: 343716195 Jabber: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid “If art interprets our dreams, the computer executes them in the guise of programs!” - Alan J. Perlis ---
**Author:** ![rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubenfonseca)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2007, 6:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-2-0-rest-resources-admin-and-dry/124284/9 "2007-12-27T18:43:08Z")
Did you look at the first one: [http://www.fallenrogue.com/articles/178-Creating-a-RESTful-admin-section-in-Rails](http://www.fallenrogue.com/articles/178-Creating-a-RESTful-admin-section-in-Rails) This is typically how I have seen it done using a single controller and views with conditional displays of admin stuff or with routing to admin views if logged in, etc. Ruben F. wrote: > On 2007/12/27, at 10:43, Bruno R. wrote: > > > > > indeed I found! excelent tutorials! thank you! > > however, my fears became real… what Akita really do is mannually > copy the resource generated files inside the admin namespace, > efectivly repeating code… goodbye DRI, now I have _two_ pieces of > code to mantain ☹ > > anyway, I learned a lot about rails 2 with those two posts! thank you! > > R�ben ---
**Author:** ![rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubenfonseca)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2007, 10:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-2-0-rest-resources-admin-and-dry/124284/10 "2007-12-27T22:24:49Z")
I am afraid those two links are for old version of Rails and it is not using name space mechanism available in Rails 2.0. You can use: map.resources :posts map.namespace(:admin) do |admin| admin.resources :posts, :has\_many =\> :comments end in Rails 2.0. You can create the admin/posts controller by: > script/generate controller “admin/posts” > exists app/controllers/admin > exists app/helpers/admin > create app/views/admin/posts > create test/functional/admin > create app/controllers/admin/posts\_controller.rb > create test/functional/admin/posts\_controller\_test.rb > create app/helpers/admin/posts\_helper.rb For the public view, deleting the actions that is not allowed is a practical solution. You handle the error by using the rescue\_from class method that is available in Rails 2.0. Admin section will have its own views that allow the edit, delete and so on, where the public views will not have template for those actions. I would not worry too much about being DRY, some wetness is ok as long as it simplifies your code. On Dec 27, 2007 4:53 AM, Ersin Er [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > working very nice. > > should I deal with this? Should I change the methods to return an > > ## [http://www.fallenrogue.com/articles/181-Creating-a-RESTful-admin-section-in-Rails-with-2-controllers](http://www.fallenrogue.com/articles/181-Creating-a-RESTful-admin-section-in-Rails-with-2-controllers) > > Ersin Er > > > – [http://www.rubyplus.org/](http://www.rubyplus.org/) Free Ruby and Rails Screencasts ---
**Author:** ![rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubenfonseca)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 10:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-2-0-rest-resources-admin-and-dry/124284/11 "2009-01-13T22:57:27Z")
I’m just starting a new project and I was interested in how to use admin areas with namespaces. I read both articles above, and I think the real deal would be to use 2 controllers, one being with ‘admin’ namespace. On the views, I think the best way to keep DRY, would be to use probably some admin layout, and reuse partials from the public views. That’s possible using the right arguments to render. Let’s say you’ve got a Product and User models. From within views/admin/products/index.html.erb one could use \< render :partial =\> /products/index \> or something like that. Anyway, the reason for the post is, that I was reading the Rails Guides (rake doc:guides), and there is this interesting one about routing =\> “Rails routing from the outside in” which explains a whole lot of stuff. And I came up with this solution (but didn’t test it yet) for the unused actions on the public controllers and views. map.with\_options(:only =\> [:index, :show]) do |public| public.resources :products, :users end map.namespace(:admin) do |admin| admin.resources :products, :users end I think this can solve the issue, by using 2 controllers. ---
**Author:** ![rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubenfonseca)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 2:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-2-0-rest-resources-admin-and-dry/124284/12 "2009-01-14T14:13:37Z")
Darryl Pierce wrote: > On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 4:57 PM, Jose Ferreira > [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > I’m just starting a new project and I was interested in how to use admin > > areas with namespaces. > > I read both articles above, > > What are the articles you’re referring to in the above? I’m on the > mailing list and don’t see the links you mentioned. > > – > Darryl L. Pierce [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > Visit the Infobahn Offramp: [http://mcpierce.multiply.com](http://mcpierce.multiply.com) > “Bury me next to my wife. Nothing too fancy…” - Ulysses S. Grant It’s easier to see the whole discussion with this link: [http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/136715#769291](http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/136715#769291) ---
**Author:** ![rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@rubenfonseca](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubenfonseca)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 11:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-2-0-rest-resources-admin-and-dry/124284/13 "2009-01-14T11:27:32Z")
On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 4:57 PM, Jose Ferreira [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I’m just starting a new project and I was interested in how to use admin > areas with namespaces. > I read both articles above, What are the articles you’re referring to in the above? I’m on the mailing list and don’t see the links you mentioned. – Darryl L. Pierce [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) Visit the Infobahn Offramp: [http://mcpierce.multiply.com](http://mcpierce.multiply.com) “Bury me next to my wife. Nothing too fancy…” - Ulysses S. Grant