rails delete controller with ActiveRecord not working

Question

I am using Rails and have a controller for Bills in which there is a destroy method. In the browser, when I use the delete url e.g. localhost/delete/2 (2 in this case is the ID of the relevant bill), the bill never gets deleted. Any ideas on what I could be doing wrong (or if I should additional configs here). The routes is copied below ass well.

bills_controller

  def destroy
    @bill = Bill.find(params[:id])
    @bill.destroy
    respond_to do |format|
      format.html { redirect_to posts_url, notice: 'Bill was successfully destroyed.' }
      format.json { head :no_content }
    end
  end

Routes:

Rails.application.routes.draw do
  resources :bills
  get 'bills/index'
end

Should I be adding a specific route for the delete action in the routes.rb file? I have the following on my HTML page:

  <td><a data-confirm="Are you sure?" rel="nofollow" data-method="delete" href="/bills/1">Destroy</a></td>

delete & index portion of the controller:

 def index
    @bills = Bill.all
  end

  # DELETE /bills/1
  # DELETE /bills/1.json
  def destroy
    @bill = Bill.find(params[:id])
    @bill.destroy
    respond_to do |format|
      format.html { redirect_to bills_url, notice: 'Bill was successfully destroyed.' }
      format.json { head :no_content }
    end
  end

index erb file

<p id="notice"><%= notice %></p>

<h1>Listing Bills</h1>

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Title</th>
      <th>Body</th>
      <th colspan="3"></th>
    </tr>
  </thead>

  <tbody>
    <% @bills.each do |bill| %>
      <tr>
        <td><%= bill.title %></td>
        <td><%= bill.body %></td>
        <td><%= link_to 'Show', bill %></td>
        <td><%= link_to 'Edit', edit_bill_path(bill) %></td>
        <td><%= link_to 'Destroy', post, method: :delete, data: { confirm: 'Are you sure?' } %></td>
      </tr>
    <% end %>
  </tbody>
</table>

<br>

<%= link_to 'New Post', new_post_path %>

routing to destroy requires the request be made by the HTTP DELETE method. Just visiting this route in the browser will create a GET request and will probably raise a no route matches error. Most browsers do not support true DELETE requests so rails falsifies this for you by adding a _method param and then handles the request appropriately in it's internals. As a side note you did not post your bills routes but rather posts — engineersmnky
– engineersmnky, Commented Sep 10, 2015 at 19:17
thank you for pointing it out - what do I need to change to ensure that the delete gets called? — user3813256
– user3813256, Commented Sep 10, 2015 at 19:22
you have link_to 'Destroy', post this seems to be an on going issue are you sure you are posting the actual source? — engineersmnky
– engineersmnky, Commented Sep 10, 2015 at 20:24

Daiku · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-10 19:23:02Z

1

Your browser will use an HTTP action of GET. You need it to be DELETE. You can install a plugin for your browser that will let you make rest calls, and set the action, but I think it's easier to user curl:

curl -X DELETE localhost/bills/2

You might need to adjust the hostname in the URL, but you get the idea.

edited Sep 10, 2015 at 19:23

answered Sep 10, 2015 at 19:18

Daiku

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22 Comments

user3813256 Over a year ago

I have a link in the URL for delete ( <td><a data-confirm="Are you sure?" rel="nofollow" data-method="delete" href="/bills/1">Destroy</a></td>)

Daiku Over a year ago

Yes, that should work. But just visiting that URL with the browser will not.

Daiku Over a year ago

But you won't want to hard-code the href. Use a path helper, and pass the object to be deleted.

Daiku Over a year ago

Like this: <%= link_to "Delete", bill_path(@bill), method: :delete, data: { confirm: "Are you sure?" }%>

engineersmnky Over a year ago

@Daiku by the way link_to can infer the singular path bill_path if just the object is passed. Just some of that fun rails automagic

|

user3813256 · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-11 06:11:12Z

1

Issue was that my rails app vendor javascript directory was empty and not pulling in the javascript files required to enable the delete call.

answered Sep 11, 2015 at 6:11

user3813256

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