Action Controllers are the core of a web request in Rails. They are made up of one or more actions that are executed on request and then either render a template or redirect to another action. An action is defined as a public method on the controller, which will automatically be made accessible to the web-server through Rails Routes.
By default, only the ApplicationController in a Rails application inherits
from ActionController::Base
. All other controllers in turn
inherit from ApplicationController. This gives you one class to configure
things such as request forgery protection and filtering of sensitive
request parameters.
A sample controller could look like this:
class PostsController < ApplicationController def index @posts = Post.all end def create @post = Post.create params[:post] redirect_to posts_path end end
Actions, by default, render a template in the app/views
directory corresponding to the name of the controller and action after
executing code in the action. For example, the index
action of
the PostsController would render the template
app/views/posts/index.html.erb
by default after populating the
@posts
instance variable.
Unlike index, the create action will not render a template. After performing its main purpose (creating a new post), it initiates a redirect instead. This redirect works by returning an external “302 Moved” HTTP response that takes the user to the index action.
These two methods represent the two basic action archetypes used in Action Controllers. Get-and-show and do-and-redirect. Most actions are variations on these themes.
Requests
For every request, the router determines the value of the
controller
and action
keys. These determine which
controller and action are called. The remaining request parameters, the
session (if one is available), and the full request with all the HTTP
headers are made available to the action through accessor methods. Then the
action is performed.
The full request object is available via the request accessor and is primarily used to query for HTTP headers:
def server_ip location = request.env["SERVER_ADDR"] render :text => "This server hosted at #{location}" end
Parameters
All request parameters, whether they come from a GET or POST request, or
from the URL, are available through the params method which returns a hash.
For example, an action that was performed through
/posts?category=All&limit=5
will include {
"category" => "All", "limit" =>
"5" }
in params.
It's also possible to construct multi-dimensional parameter hashes by specifying keys using brackets, such as:
<input type="text" name="post[name]" value="david"> <input type="text" name="post[address]" value="hyacintvej">
A request stemming from a form holding these inputs will include {
"post" => { "name" => "david",
"address" => "hyacintvej" } }
. If the address
input had been named “post[street]”, the
params would have included { "post" => {
"address" => { "street" => "hyacintvej"
} } }
. There's no limit to the depth of the nesting.
Sessions
Sessions allow you to store objects in between requests. This is useful for objects that are not yet ready to be persisted, such as a Signup object constructed in a multi-paged process, or objects that don't change much and are needed all the time, such as a User object for a system that requires login. The session should not be used, however, as a cache for objects where it's likely they could be changed unknowingly. It's usually too much work to keep it all synchronized – something databases already excel at.
You can place objects in the session by using the session
method, which accesses a hash:
session[:person] = Person.authenticate(user_name, password)
And retrieved again through the same hash:
Hello #{session[:person]}
For removing objects from the session, you can either assign a single key
to nil
:
# removes :person from session session[:person] = nil
or you can remove the entire session with reset_session
.
Sessions are stored by default in a browser cookie that's cryptographically signed, but unencrypted. This prevents the user from tampering with the session but also allows him to see its contents.
Do not put secret information in cookie-based sessions!
Other options for session storage:
-
ActiveRecord::SessionStore - Sessions are stored in your database, which works better than PStore with multiple app servers and, unlike CookieStore, hides your session contents from the user. To use ActiveRecord::SessionStore, set
MyApplication::Application.config.session_store :active_record_store
in your
config/initializers/session_store.rb
and runscript/rails g session_migration
.
Responses
Each action results in a response, which holds the headers and document to be sent to the user's browser. The actual response object is generated automatically through the use of renders and redirects and requires no user intervention.
Renders
Action Controller sends content to the user by using one of five rendering methods. The most versatile and common is the rendering of a template. Included in the Action Pack is the Action View, which enables rendering of ERB templates. It's automatically configured. The controller passes objects to the view by assigning instance variables:
def show @post = Post.find(params[:id]) end
Which are then automatically available to the view:
Title: <%= @post.title %>
You don't have to rely on the automated rendering. For example, actions that could result in the rendering of different templates will use the manual rendering methods:
def search @results = Search.find(params[:query]) case @results.count when 0 then render :action => "no_results" when 1 then render :action => "show" when 2..10 then render :action => "show_many" end end
Read more about writing ERB and Builder templates in ActionView::Base.
Redirects
Redirects are used to move from one action to another. For example, after a
create
action, which stores a blog entry to the database, we
might like to show the user the new entry. Because we're following good
DRY principles (Don't Repeat Yourself), we're going to reuse (and
redirect to) a show
action that we'll assume has already
been created. The code might look like this:
def create @entry = Entry.new(params[:entry]) if @entry.save # The entry was saved correctly, redirect to show redirect_to :action => 'show', :id => @entry.id else # things didn't go so well, do something else end end
In this case, after saving our new entry to the database, the user is
redirected to the show
method, which is then executed. Note
that this is an external HTTP-level redirection which will cause the
browser to make a second request (a GET to the show action), and not some
internal re-routing which calls both “create” and then “show” within one
request.
Learn more about redirect_to
and what options you have in ActionController::Redirecting.
Calling multiple redirects or renders
An action may contain only a single render or a single redirect. Attempting to try to do either again will result in a DoubleRenderError:
def do_something redirect_to :action => "elsewhere" render :action => "overthere" # raises DoubleRenderError end
If you need to redirect on the condition of something, then be sure to add “and return” to halt execution.
def do_something redirect_to(:action => "elsewhere") and return if monkeys.nil? render :action => "overthere" # won't be called if monkeys is nil end
MODULES | = | [ AbstractController::Layouts, AbstractController::Translation, AbstractController::AssetPaths, Helpers, HideActions, UrlFor, Redirecting, Rendering, Renderers::All, ConditionalGet, RackDelegation, Caching, MimeResponds, ImplicitRender, Cookies, Flash, RequestForgeryProtection, ForceSSL, Streaming, DataStreaming, RecordIdentifier, HttpAuthentication::Basic::ControllerMethods, HttpAuthentication::Digest::ControllerMethods, HttpAuthentication::Token::ControllerMethods, # Before callbacks should also be executed the earliest as possible, so # also include them at the bottom. AbstractController::Callbacks, # Append rescue at the bottom to wrap as much as possible. Rescue, # Add instrumentations hooks at the bottom, to ensure they instrument # all the methods properly. Instrumentation, # Params wrapper should come before instrumentation so they are # properly showed in logs ParamsWrapper ] |