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Path Helpers

1:38 with Jay McGavren

Before we fix the controller issue, we need to take a quick detour and show you a better way to create links within your own app. Having to type "/pages/#{page.id}" everywhere you want to link to an individual page is tedious and error-prone. If we want, we can name the route. This will have Rails create a path helper method for us that will return that same path string.

Having to type "/pages/#{page.id}" everywhere you want to link to an individual page is tedious and error-prone. If we want, we can name the route. This will have Rails create a path helper method for us that will return that same path string.

In routes.rb, add an as: argument at the next of the route, with a string value. That string will be used as the route name. It can be anything we want, but since this is a route to get a single Page, a name of 'page' would be conventional.

get '/pages/:id', to: 'pages#show', as: 'page'

Now, in your templates, you can replace "/pages/#{page.id}" with page_path(page). It will look at the ID of the model object you pass in, and return a string with a path that includes that ID.

Before we fix the controller issue, we need to take a quick detour and 0:00
show you a better way to create links within your own app. 0:03
Having the type /pages/page.id everywhere you want to link to an individual 0:07
page is tedious and they are prone. 0:11
If we want we can name the route. 0:14
This will have Rails create a path helper method for 0:16
us that will return that same path string. 0:19
In rounds.rb add in as arguments on the end of the row with a string value, 0:22
that string will be used as the route name. 0:26
It can be anything we want but since this is a route to get a single page, 0:30
a name of page would be conventional. 0:34
Save that. 0:37
Now in the index template you can replace /pages/page.id with page_path(page). 0:38
It will look at the ID of the model object you pass in, and 0:46
return a string with a path that includes that ID. 0:50
If we save that and 0:54
reload our list of all pages, you'll see the result is the same path string. 0:55
We can even skip calling page_path explicitly and 1:01
just pass the page object as an argument to link two. 1:04
Behind the scenes link two will call page_path on the object for us. 1:08
And you can see the result is the very same path string. 1:15
So now you know how to name a route and how it can clean up your code. 1:18
It's almost always better to name a route and use the helper methods it creates, 1:22
rather than littering your code with path strings. 1:26
It just keeps things cleaner. 1:28
Okay that little detour is out of the way. 1:30
But we're still getting an error when we try to click on the link to show 1:32
an individual page. 1:35
We'll work on that next. 1:36

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