How to add a custom action to the controller in Rails 3

Question

I want to add another action to my controller, and I can't figure out how.

I found this on RailsCasts, and on most StackOverflow topics:

# routes.rb resources :items, :collection => {:schedule => :post, :save_scheduling => :put}  # items_controller.rb   ...   def schedule   end    def save_scheduling   end  # items index view: <%= link_to 'Schedule', schedule_item_path(item) %> 

But it gives me the error:

undefined method `schedule_item_path' for #<#<Class:0x6287b50>:0x62730c0> 

Not sure where I should go from here.

Answer 1

A nicer way to write

resources :items, :collection => {:schedule => :post, :save_scheduling => :put} 

is

resources :items do   collection do     post :schedule     put :save_scheduling   end end 

This is going to create URLs like

• /items/schedule
• /items/save_scheduling

Because you're passing an item into your schedule_... route method, you likely want member routes instead of collection routes.

resources :items do   member do     post :schedule     put :save_scheduling   end end 

This is going to create URLs like

• /items/:id/schedule
• /items/:id/save_scheduling

Now a route method schedule_item_path accepting an Item instance will be available. The final issue is, your link_to as it stands is going to generate a GET request, not a POST request as your route requires. You need to specify this as a :method option.

link_to("Title here", schedule_item_path(item), method: :post, ...) 

Recommended Reading: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/UrlHelper.html#method-i-link_to