Confusion about passing instance variables to redirect_to method. As seen in Rails Guides

Question

I am studying the ruby on rails guides namely, the \"layouts and rendering\" topic at http://guides.rubyonrails.org/layouts_and_rendering.html

I am confused about pa

Answer 1

redirect_to documentation

redirect_to(options = {}, response_status = {}) Redirects the browser to the target specified in options. Record - The URL will be generated by calling url_for with the options, which will reference a named URL for that record.

So when one does redirect_to(@book) @book is a specific record with an id .

Thus, the associated records (in this case @book) show method is used as a template.

In addition to above, if you look at the routes.rb file which defines these paths you will notice

resources :books

Now this route is essentially translated as (you can see by running rake routes)

    books GET    /books(.:format)                   books#index
          POST   /books(.:format)                   books#create
 new_book GET    /books/new(.:format)               books#new
edit_book GET    /books/:id/edit(.:format)          books#edit
     book GET    /books/:id(.:format)               books#show
          PUT    /books/:id(.:format)               books#update
          DELETE /books/:id(.:format)               books#destroy

Notice the book GET /books/:id books#show - which gets matched when you do redirect_to(@book)

Answer 2

It'll redirect to a book, for example "/books/65"