Call a controller method via button in Rails - mysql

Question

I want to create a button in views/companies/edit.html.haml for destroy_referrals method, but I can't get the button to work. To call the action on a button I tried to create a new route, but I am still receiving the error The action 'destroy_referrals' could not be found for CompaniesController
I created a destroy_referrals method in Admin::CompaniesController,
def destroy_referrals
load_company
#company.destroy_referrals
flash[:notice] = 'Referrals deleted'
redirect_to :action => :index
end
it manipulates the company.rb model to find the referrals from users with the same company_id and destroys them,
def destroy_referrals
Referral.joins(:user).where("users.company_id = ?", self.id).destroy_all
end
Some things I've tried below...
routes.rb
post '/destroy_referrals' => 'admin/companies#destroy_referrals', :as => 'destroy_referrals'
views/companies/edit.html.haml
= button_to 'Destroy Referrals', destroy_referral_path
= button_to 'Destroy Referrals', admin_company_destroy_referral_path(#company)

Answer 1

HTML links (not “buttons”) aren't wired up to call “methods” directly.
The button_to method creates an HTML button, which behaves similarly to a link, but with different visual styles.
Ruby has methods, which are a common programing construct.
HTML links have an href attribute that a browser can follow by making a subsequent HTTP request to.
When a browser sends a request to your Rails application, the application uses your routes to determine how to handle that request.
The conventional way to handle a request in Rails is to route it to a controller action.
A RESTful request to /products/1 might, by convention, route to the show action on the ProductsController.
In Rails, an “action” is created by defining a method on the controller.
RESTful routes reflect the representational state transfer paradigm, involving reading, listing, creating, updating, and deleting records/objects.
To delete (or destroy) a record, RESTful convention would be to send a DELETE request to the Rails application, which would be routed to the relevant controller's destroy action, defined by the destroy method.
You can create an HTML link that results in a browser sending such a request using the link_to helper and specifying method: :delete in the parameters.
You can define a route instructing Rails to handle such a request using the built in “resourceful” routing: e.g. resources :products. Alternately, an explicit route can be defined: delete '/products/:id' => 'products#destroy'.
This all said, the error Rails is giving you is that it can't find the destroy_referrals method in CompaniesController. Defining methods in Admin::CompaniesController won't do anything to resolve this.

Answer 2

#Swards the route needed to be delete
'companies/:id/destroy_referrals' => 'companies#destroy_referrals',
:as => 'destroy_referrals'
I thought it might be a simple fix. Do you still need the admin namespace?
Consider this, instead of creating a named route
namespace 'admin' do
resources :companies do
delete 'destroy_referrals', :on => :member, :as => 'destroy_referrals'
end
end
And refer to it as admin_destroy_referrals_company_path
= button_to 'Destroy Referrals', admin_destroy_referrals_company_path(#company), :method => :delete