Voting app in rails 3: how do I link to vote method? - ruby-on-rails-3

Question

To teach myself Rails, im building an extremely simple Voting app.
There are 2 models, Question and Option. Question has_many Options and Option belongs_to Question.
Using the standard scaffolding, I have reached a stage where you can add a question, view it, and add options to it and see these options.
What I would like to do now is add the code that increases an option.count value by one when clicking on a link. I have a vote_up method in the Option model:
class Option < ActiveRecord::Base
validates :text, :presence => :true
belongs_to :question
def vote_up
self.count += 1
end
end
My Options controller looks like:
class OptionsController < ApplicationController
def create
#question = Question.find(params[:question_id])
#option = #question.options.create(params[:option])
redirect_to question_path(#question)
end
end
My Question model looks like:
class Question < ActiveRecord::Base
validates :text, :presence => {:message => 'A question normally has text...'}
has_many :options, :dependent => :destroy
def vote
# Maybe the vote code will go here???
end
end
And my Question controller has the usual new, create, edit, destroy methods that the scaffold creates. V little customisation here.
My show.html.erb view where I would like to put the link to the vote method looks like:
<p id="notice"><%= notice %></p>
<p>
<b>Question <%= #question.guid %></b>:
<%= #question.text %>
</p>
<% if #question.options.count == 0 %>
<p>Shame! there are currently no options to vote on. Add some! </p>
<% elsif #question.options.count == 1 %>
<p>One option in a vote is a dictatorship... Maybe add some more?</p>
<% end %>
<h2>Options:</h2>
<% #question.options.each do |option| %>
<p>
<%= option.text %>: ** Link to vote here!
</p>
<% end %>
<h2>Add an option to vote on</h2>
<%= form_for([#question, #question.options.build]) do |f| %>
<div class="field">
<%= f.label :text %><br />
<%= f.text_field :text %>
</div>
<div class="actions">
<%= f.submit %>
</div>
<% end %>
<% if #question.options.count == 0 # Only show edit if no options saved. %>
<%= link_to 'Edit', edit_question_path(#question) %> |
<% end %>
<%= link_to 'Back', questions_path %>
So what I am trying to do is add a "vote" link next to each option that calls the vote_up method in the options model. This is probably laughably easy, but i've hit a wall and would really appreciate any help.
Also, any suggestions on how to do this better would be welcome!
Thanks
Simon

Answer 1

I think #oded-harth has showed a right way, but I have two remarks:
First of all, Rails is a beautiful language and is written to simplify our developer lives ;) When programming in Rails you must never forget that. With this in mind, I want to point you to "increment()" method. So you can simply up-vote without unnecessary += 1. To down-vote use decrement(). I believe you can use it like this: option.increment(:count)
Second, I think it's a little dirty to have a whole form for a simple vote action. You can use something like this
<%= link_to "Vote Up", :url => { :action => :vote_up, :option_id => option.id }, :method => :put %>
To make it work you'll have to set your route something like this:
resources :votes
put :vote_up
end

Answer 2

What I would do is make the vote_up method in the controller:
def vote_up
option = Option.find(params[:option_id])
option.count += 1
redirect (to where do you want...)
end
And in the view I would call that method this way:
<%= form_for( option, :url => { :action => "vote_up", :option_id => option.id} ) do |f| %>
<%= f.submit("vote up") %>
<% end %>