Methods for limiting the Rails render format to html

Question

I have a Rails 2.1.2 site that only has html templates e.g. jobs.html.erb, so when I request a restful resource:

www.mysite.com/jobs/1

Answer 1

You can use Rails Per-Action Overwrite feature. What's this? --> It’s also possible to override standard resource handling by passing in a block to respond_with specifying which formats to override for that action:

class UsersController < ApplicationController::Base

  respond_to :html, :xml, :json

  # Override html format since we want to redirect to a different page,
  # not just serve back the new resource
  def create
    @user = User.create(params[:user])
    respond_with(@user) do |format|
      format.html { redirect_to users_path }
    end
  end
end

:except And :only Options

You can also pass in :except and :only options to only support formats for specific actions (as you do with before_filter):

class UsersController < ApplicationController::Base
  respond_to :html, :only => :index
  respond_to :xml, :json, :except => :show
  ...
end

The :any Format

If you’re still want to use respond_to within your individual actions, use the :any resource format that can be used as a wildcard match against any unspecified formats:

class UsersController < ApplicationController::Base

  def index

    @users = User.all

    respond_to do |format|
      format.html
      format.any(:xml, :json) { render request.format.to_sym => @users }
    end
  end
end