Rails route URL helpers in JavaScript

[Bogdan Gusiev]

Good Morning,

Rails route URL helpers are great. Their API is concise and intuitive.

I believe that we should have that API available in Javascript too:

users_path()                                       // => "/users"
user_path(1)                                       // => "/users/1"
user_path(1, {format: 'json'})                     // => "/users/1.json"
user_path(1, {anchor: 'profile'})                  // => "/users/1#profile"
new_user_project_path(1, {format: 'json'})         // => "/users/1/projects/new.json"
user_project_path(1,2, {q: 'hello', custom: true}) // => "/users/1/projects/2?q=hello&custom=true"
user_project_path(1,2, {hello: ['world', 'mars']}) // => "/users/1/projects/2?hello%5B%5D=world&hello%5B%5D=mars"

Most Rails projects I know hardcode routes in Javascript, some pass those routes from HTML as data attributes.

Like:

jQuery.get("/posts/" + post.id + "/comments/" + comment.id + ".json", function(){ ...});
// slightly better
jQuery.get($(this).data("url"), function(){ ...});

But I believe that extensive use of JS should require URL helpers. 

Here is the "prototype" 8 years old project I maintain: https://github.com/railsware/js-routes

But I believe 90% of Rails projects need that out of the box now.

What do you think about adding the functionality to the Rails core?

[Andrew Kaspick]

I've generally got around this issue by including helper generated urls in data-* attributes or in json generated on the server, but perhaps there's situations where those solutions don't work.

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[DHH]

We use data-url attributes alongside Stimulus at Basecamp. I don't see that a JS router is something we'd ship by default. But great to have that as a gem 👍

[Piotr Szmielew]

I feel that exposing all routes through JS would be a huge security issue. 

Using data URL attributes would be fine - exposing only routes available to the current user.

[Andrew Kaspick]

I use data-* attributes as well or pass the urls back to the client via json generated on the server.