Hi, I''ve read the blogs, I''ve seen the Peepcode screencast,
and I even
read the beta book from the Pragmatic guys - still, I fail to understand
how REST can simplify my controllers beyond the CRUD operations.
Example: I got a simple article object. I got want to get the most
recent articles, that''s not supported by the CRUD stuff, so I add:
map.resources :articles, :collection => { :recent => :get }
... in my routes. Now say I want to flag some of those articles as
''enabled/disabled'' or ''featured/not
featured'':
map.resources :articles, :member => { :featured => :put, :enabled =>
:put }
I can think of about 39303049 different ''methods'' I need to
call in this
fashion. Does it mean I have to add that many ''custom''
resource routes
to my route file, just to then have to declare them as part of my
controllers? In which case, short if simplifying the CRUD action, REST
didn''t help simplify my controller at all?
I know I''m missing something, the question is, what :-D If you guys
could point me in the right direction, that would be great...
--
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cremes.devlist-ee4meeAH724@public.gmane.org
2006-Nov-27 00:25 UTC
Re: Restful rails: when simple just isn''t enough
On Nov 26, 2006, at 4:50 PM, Steve Dogers wrote:> > Hi, I''ve read the blogs, I''ve seen the Peepcode screencast, and I even > read the beta book from the Pragmatic guys - still, I fail to > understand > how REST can simplify my controllers beyond the CRUD operations. > > Example: I got a simple article object. I got want to get the most > recent articles, that''s not supported by the CRUD stuff, so I add: > > map.resources :articles, :collection => { :recent => :get } > > ... in my routes. Now say I want to flag some of those articles as > ''enabled/disabled'' or ''featured/not featured'': > > map.resources :articles, :member => { :featured => :put, :enabled => > :put }[snip] Okay, first up is a disclaimer. I''m still getting my feet wet with REST so this might be totally wrong. Proceed at your own risk. When looking at your collection from these other perspectives (recent = time, status = enabled/disabled/featured/etc), these other perspectives become controllers. GET example.com/recent This returns some default timespan of recent articles. GET example.com/recent/45 This returns articles from the past 45 days. Or maybe you just take additional parameters in to your regular #show method. GET example.com/articles?begin=today&end=45 This might behave just like the #recent/45 example above. I highly recommend looking at the articles on wikipedia [1] and RestWiki [2] to understand how to apply REST principles. The REST approach will likely result in more controllers, but each controller will be much simpler to implement and test. If you are still stuck in the mode that says there is a 1:1 relationship between controllers and models then you might be in for a rough ride. cr [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Transfer [2] http://rest.blueoxen.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?FrontPage --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Thank you! Can anyone confirm Chuck''s highlights? I get this feeling RESTful application are still very much bleeding edge... -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Steve Dogers wrote:> Thank you! > > Can anyone confirm Chuck''s highlights? I get this feeling RESTful > application are still very much bleeding edge... > >Like Chuck, I''m no REST expert, but am halfway through refactoring an app to be RESTful, and it''s improving it no end. The structure is stronger, the reasoning better, and the whole thing is a lot less messy. In all my RESTful controllers I''m set up the :index action to display the 20 most recent items, and if I need to filter it, perhaps by restricting them to items that are tagged with "foo", I simply pass a :tag => "foo" parameter along with the request. It''s trivial if there''s just one possible filter, not that much more difficult using case..when with using more than one possible one. I''ve only needed to resort to additional actions in a couple of controllers (and it''s a fairly big app), and in those it''s been for specific destructive actions, e.g. disapproving an item. HTH CT --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
On 11/26/06, Steve Dogers <rails-mailing-list-ARtvInVfO7ksV2N9l4h3zg@public.gmane.org> wrote:> > > ... in my routes. Now say I want to flag some of those articles as > ''enabled/disabled'' or ''featured/not featured'': > > map.resources :articles, :member => { :featured => :put, :enabled => > :put } > > I can think of about 39303049 different ''methods'' I need to call in this > fashion. Does it mean I have to add that many ''custom'' resource routes > to my route file, just to then have to declare them as part of my > controllers? In which case, short if simplifying the CRUD action, REST > didn''t help simplify my controller at all? > >Could you not just pass these "methods" during a post update? These ''methods'' really sound like state information about the object that need to be updated. It sounds overkill and redundant to add specialized methods for performing simple state updates. If you want to display or filter the displayed result by certain state information you can pass them as parameters to either the index function http://example.com/articles?enabled=true, etc. Alternatively if you wish you could create a custom :member function in the routes when you wish to perform very selective filtering. Ie. recent 45 days of articles, etc. Rest works well in some cases but possibly not in every case. If its causing you more grief than its worth than don''t bother. I''ve started developing a ''rest'' app and I must admit that it does simplify my life and removes a lot of the redundant code/views. Adam --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
On 11/27/06, Adam Rails <adam.rails-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote:> On 11/26/06, Steve Dogers > <rails-mailing-list-ARtvInVfO7ksV2N9l4h3zg@public.gmane.org> wrote: > > > > ... in my routes. Now say I want to flag some of those articles as > > ''enabled/disabled'' or ''featured/not featured'': > > > > map.resources :articles, :member => { :featured => :put, :enabled => > > :put } > > > > I can think of about 39303049 different ''methods'' I need to call in this > > fashion. Does it mean I have to add that many ''custom'' resource routes > > to my route file, just to then have to declare them as part of my > > controllers? In which case, short if simplifying the CRUD action, REST > > didn''t help simplify my controller at all? > > > > > > Could you not just pass these "methods" during a post update? These > ''methods'' really sound like state information about the object that need to > be updated. It sounds overkill and redundant to add specialized methods > for performing simple state updates.Not only could he, but that''s what he SHOULD do. He''s simply updating the attributes of a resource, which is what HTTP PUT is for. Pat --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
ljredpath-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org
2006-Nov-28 12:04 UTC
Re: Restful rails: when simple just isn''t enough
Your collection methods are fine - think of collection actions as alternative GET requests. This is still the R part of CRUD. You may want to consider using query string parameters instead though. For your update methods - these could all be part of a single update operation. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---