Why controllers handle requests in Ruby on Rails - See It in Action

Understanding Why Controllers Handle Requests in Rails

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple web application using Ruby on Rails. The app needs to respond to user actions like visiting a page or submitting a form.In Rails, controllers are the parts that receive these user requests and decide what to do next.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to create a controller in Rails that handles a web request by defining an action method.This will show how controllers act as the middleman between the user and the app's response.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a controller named WelcomeController

Add an action method called home inside the controller

Set up a route that directs the root URL / to WelcomeController#home

Create a simple view template that displays a welcome message

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Web applications need to respond to user actions like clicking links or submitting forms. Controllers handle these requests and decide what the user sees next.

💼 Career

Understanding controllers is essential for building web apps with Rails, a popular framework used by many companies.

1

Create the WelcomeController

Create a controller class named WelcomeController that inherits from ApplicationController.

Ruby on Rails

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Controllers in Rails are classes that inherit from ApplicationController.

2

Add the home action method

Inside the WelcomeController, add a method named home with no parameters.

Ruby on Rails

class WelcomeController < ApplicationController
  # Define the home action method here
  # Your code here
end

Need a hint?

Action methods in controllers are simple methods that respond to requests.

3

Set the root route to WelcomeController#home

In the config/routes.rb file, add a line to set the root URL / to the home action of WelcomeController.

Ruby on Rails

class WelcomeController < ApplicationController
  def home
  end
end

# Add root route below
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The root route directs the base URL to a controller action using the syntax root 'controller#action'.

4

Create a view template for the home action

Create a file named home.html.erb inside app/views/welcome/ folder. Inside it, add a heading with the text Welcome to Rails!.

Ruby on Rails

class WelcomeController < ApplicationController
  def home
  end
end

Rails.application.routes.draw do
  root 'welcome#home'
end

# Create app/views/welcome/home.html.erb with a heading
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Views are HTML files with embedded Ruby placed in app/views/controller_name/.