what is the difference between link_to, redirect_t

Question

I am confused about the main difference(s) among link_to, redirect_to and render in Rails. anyone can please explain.

Answer 1

I actually just wrote a blog post about this. The most important bits are copied below (with modifications).

Controller Methods: render vs. redirect_to

render and redirect_to are the two ways that controller actions end (generally speaking). To understand how they work, let's review what controllers do in a Rails app:

• A user tries to access a page.
  (http://localhost:3000/books/index.html)
• Under the hood, the browser sends an HTTP request for the specified path on the server.
  (GET /books/index.html)
• The Rails routing system then looks up which controller corresponds to the given request path.
  (books GET /books/index(.:format) books#index)
• The controller prepares some data and then tells the server what response (i.e., what HTTP header/body content) to send back to the client.

This last step occurs explicitly when you call render or redirect_to, or implicitly if you leave it out.

That is,

def index
  @books = Book.all
end

is the same as

def index
  @books = Book.all
  render :index
end

render :index says, ‘combine the data I've prepared (@books = Book.all) with the books/index.html.erb view template to generate a complete HTML document, then send that back to the client.’

redirect_to @book says, ‘tell the client to start the whole process over again, issuing a new GET request to url_for(@book).

If you omit both, the action will render a template with the same name as the action itself. In other words, you only need to call render explicitly when the view template you want doesn’t match the action you’re rendering it from.

Note that not every controller action has a corresponding view template. Generally, #create, #update, and #destroy (which are all routed to non-GET HTTP requests) attempt to make some change to the database and then either redirect_to some resource (if it succeeded) or re-render the form that preceded it, along with any errors (if it failed).

As the official guides explain (emphasis mine),

These two methods [render and redirect_to] represent the two basic action archetypes used in Action Controllers: Get-and-show and do-and-redirect. Most actions are variations on these themes.

---

View Methods: render vs. link_to

render is also used within view templates themselves. Rather than generating a complete HTML document, it's used to insert a partial view template into a larger one. Here's the upshot:

• You can create partial view template files to be inserted into your standard templates (think of them as modular page components).
• Filenames of partials must begin with an underscore (e.g., _nav.html.erb).
• Use render 'nav' if you want to include the _nav.html.erb partial from a view located in the same folder.
• Use render 'shared/nav' if you want to include the partial at app/views/shared/_nav.html.erb from any view in your project.
• Various options and shorthand syntaxes exist for passing data into a partial, rendering multiple partials from a collection object, and more. See the guides for details.

link_to is just a convenience method for inserting anchor tags (a href tags) into your view templates. This is useful because a lot of the URLs you'll want to link to are other pages within your application, and those URLs can be referenced using objects or "helper methods", like so:

= link_to 'Back', books_path   # renders as <a href="/books">Back</a>
= link_to 'View', @book        # renders as <a href="/book/1">View</a> or similar

Answer 2

link_to will output a standard html anchor=a link (link_to documentation)

redirect_to is commonly used for page responses such as update and delete. It will take the parameters you give it and will direct your page appropriately. (redirect_to documentation)

render is used for loading partials or loading specific .erb files into others. (render documentation)

There are a bunch of examples on this rails guide which should explain render and redirect_to. link_to is pretty different from rendering and redirect_to

Answer 3

From the official Rails guides:

As you've seen, render tells Rails which view (or other asset) to use in constructing a response. The redirect_to method does something completely different: it tells the browser to send a new request for a different URL.

Answer 4

link_to is for use in ERB templates. It outputs a link to a specific path or url.

redirect_to is for use in controllers. It causes the client to request the specified path or url once the controller method exits.

render is also for use in controllers. It causes Rails to render the specified template.

redirect_to and render may only be called once in a given controller method.

Answer 5

A link_to creates a hyperlink to a specific URL, which appears on the HTML.

A redirect_to will decide where to link you to, depending on certain options. For example, if someone is logged on as a user, you might want to show him his settings page, else redirect_to the home page.

A render will open the rendered file, take its content and paste it into the existing file, before sending the whole chunk to the recipient.

Hope I am right.

Answer 6

A link_to is used on a form within rails, and is a helper to create a link element within html. The other two are not used in forms, but rather are used in controllers.

You render a page if your controller method is linked to that page. E.g. calling 'new' should render the 'new item' page. They fulfil the request that has just been made.

redirect is used for exactly that - redirecting. For example, if you try accessing a page where you have to be logged in, you redirect the user to the login page. So, redirects basically spawn a new request.