Accessing rails routes in javascript

Question

Can anyone explain how i can access the rails routes/names routes in javascript ?

The following are some of the things i tried http://github.com/jsierles/js_named_r

Answer 1

bjg really answered this, but I thought I'd extract the relevant part and amplify with an example.

You simply provide your view a string variable whose value is a named Rails path, and then use that value in the Javascript of your form. An example that illustrates how a controller method can specify the path for another method, to be opened by the script on the press of a button:

File config/routes.rb:

...
resource :foo, :only => [:show, :reset]
...
match 'foo_reset_path' => 'foo#reset'

Commanding rake routes will now produce, among other output, this:

foo             GET  /foo(.:format)            foo#show
foo_reset_path       /foo_reset_path(.:format) foo#reset

foo_reset_path is what we're going to use here, but you can of course use this method with any named Rails path.

File app/controllers/foo_controller.rb:

...
def show
  @reset_path = "foo_reset_path" # simply the string you'd use in the
                                 # Rails code for opening the path
  ...
end
...
def reset
  ... # reset some variables to their default values
  redirect_to foo_path # causes the show method to be called, and the HTML
                       # page to be redisplayed
end

File app/views/foo/show.html.erb:

...

...

I'm using JQuery here, but the basic idea should be clear. The script adds a hook to the button element whose id is reset_button, so that clicking on the button causes the reset method of foo_controller to be called.