Custom routes don't work with setTimeout

Question

For example, my routes.rb looks like:

...
get 'abc/xyz' => 'abc#xyz', :as => 'abc_xyz'
...

application.js:

...
$('a').click(showSpinner);
function showSpinner(evt) {
    link = $(this);
    evt.preventDefault();
    $('body').append('<div class="spinner-overlay"></div>');
    setTimeout(function() {
        window.location = link.attr('href');
    }, 10);
});
...

When a link using that JavaScript goes to abc_xyz_path, it gives an ActiveRecord RecordNotFound error since it's looking for the abc record with id xyz instead of using the custom route. If I remove the setTimeout, however, there's no problem and it works. Does Rails' routing system have a problem with timeouts?

UPDATE:

I realized I didn't need the preventDefault() or setTimeout(), since this click handler would happen before the link redirected anyway. Problem solved.

Answer 1

The fact that your link works without javascript indicates that it's pointing to the correct URL. Rails won't know or care wether the request came after a javascript timeout or not, so that's not the issue.

So, the problem is that your line:

window.location = link.attr('href');

must be setting the wrong url. You should do:

console.log(link.attr('href'));

to check what it's getting, and update your question with that. I don't know what link is, but according to your code sample, it's not mentioned other than in the line window.location = link.attr('href');

What I'd be doing instead is:

window.location = $(this).attr('href');

$(this) will refer to the think that just received the click event, which is what you want.

Answer 2

I realized I didn't need the preventDefault() or setTimeout(), since this click handler would happen before the link redirected anyway. No more problems.