Rails: Nested resources conflict, how to scope the index action depending on the called route

Question

Imagine you have two defined routes:

map.resources articles
map.resources categories, :has_many => :articles

both accessible by helpers/path

Answer 1

I often like to separate those actions. When the resulting actions are very similar you can separate the scopes inside the controller easy by seeing if params[:category_id] is present etc (see @SimoneCarletti answer).

Normally separating actions in the controller by using custom routes gives you most flexibility and clear results. Following code results in normal route helper names but the routes are directed to specific actions in controller.

In routes.rb:

resources categories do
  resources articles, :except => [:index] do
    get :index, :on => :collection, :action => 'index_articles'
  end
end
resources articles, :except => [:index] do
  get :index, :on => :collection, :action => 'index_all'
end

Then you can have in ArticlesController.rb

def index_all
  @articles = @articles = Articles.all
  render :index # or something else
end

def index_categories
  @articles = Articles.find_by_category_id(params[:category_id])
  render :index # or something else
end