rails rake routes where are they from

Question

When you type

 rake routes 

a bunch of routes come out, but where are they defined???

I know some are default, and how about the others?

For example, this is a script from a controller, I tried to take off the 's' from do_something, but can't make it work.... are they defined somewhere else too? Also, when do they take parameters and when not, how I know it ? Thanks!

def hello
  redirect_to do_things_shop_path(shop)
end

def do_things
end

Answer 1

Rails routing configurations are kept in config/routes.rb file.

Taking parameters depends on many things. rake routes will show with routes take parameters. Member actions will take parameters.

posts    GET        /posts(.:format)          posts#index
         POST       /posts(.:format)          posts#create
edit_post GET       /posts/:id/edit(.:format) posts#edit

In the last line, you will url like posts/:id/edit. This path requires :id parameter. You can call this route many ways. One of them is like:

edit_post_path(@post)

If you want to create a custom action, (say under posts controller), you can declare it as follow:

match `/posts/:id/things_with_id`, :to => 'posts#do_things_with_id', :as => 'do_things_with_id
match `/posts/things_without_id`, :to => 'posts#do_things_without_id', :as => 'do_things_without_id

First one requires an ID while the second one does not. Call them accordingly:

do_things_with_id_path(@post)

do_things_without_id()

For a resource, you can create these easily using member & collection action. Member action needs id while collection action does not.

resources :posts do 
  member { get 'do_thing' }
  collection { get do_things' }
end

hope you got it.

By the way, you must read the following guide if you want to understand these clearly. http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html