Why root route not working with users#show?

Question

I tried this as my root route root 'users#show' so that the User is taken to his profile upon logging in, but instead I'm confronted with this error:

ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound in UsersController#show
Couldn't find User with 'id'= 
@user = User.find(params[:id])

When I use profile as its own tab via, <li><%= link_to "Profile", current_user %></li> this works, but I can't put root 'current_user' or I get this error:

ArgumentError
Missing :action key on routes definition, please check your routes.
root 'current_user'

Thank you for your time.

Answer 1

If you need to redirect him to show action and show details of current user , then set the current_user as @user :

def show
  @user = params[:id].nil? ? current_user : User.find(params[:id])
end

Answer 2

Actually, the error message that you've provided points the problem.

If you have root defined as you've mentioned root "users#show" it properly executes the show action of UsersController , but if you have that action implemented "the standard way":

def show
  @user = User.find(params[:id])
end

it fails here, because there is no params[:id] . The value is fetched from url. If you're pointing the url:

localhost:3000/users/1

the params[:id] has value "1".

Because you're trying to point the root_path :

localhost:3000

there is no param :id bound, thus:

User.find(params[:id])

Throws the exception.

If you want to have it "the proper way", modify your config/routes.rb :

root "users#profile"
get "profile" => "users#profile"

and inn your UserController :

class UserController < ApplicationController
  # ...
  def profile
    @user = current_user # or any other logic relevant to fetching currently logged in User
  end
end

assuming that you have current_user method implemented, and it returns proper User

However, you have to be aware - setting the "profile" as a root will cause non-logged in users to see error page.

Hope that helps!

Update - moving some template to partial

You can extract the code you need from your app/views/users/show.html.erb . Let's say, it's content is something like:

<h3><%= @user.name %></h3>
<small><%= @user.bio %></small>

You can extract it to partial app/views/users/_user_details.html.erb , so it has content:

<h3><%= user.name %></h3>
<small><%= user.bio %></small>

Please note, the @ are removed from here , and in your app/views/users/show.html.erb , you can delete all the code an replace it with:

<%= render partial: "user_details", locals: { user: @user } %>

The same might be used in your app/views/pages/home.hmtl.erb like:

<% if logged_in? %>
  <%= render partial: "user_details", locals: { user: @user } %>
<% end %>

Assuming, in your PagesController you have something like:

class PagesController < ApplicationController
  def home
    @user = current_user
  end
end

Answer 3

The show action is looking for params[:id], but there is no id set during the login.

Try to get the id from your current_user:

def show
  params[:id].nil? ? @user = current_user : @user = User.find(params[:id])
end

The condition may help you to get the user's profile when you want to show the profile of other users, as an admin for example.