Rails undefined method `user_index_path`

Question

I'm new to Ruby and Rails and working my way through the Rails Tutorial. Early on, I realized that I accidentally created my model as Users rather than User, so I've been going with that ever since.

It hasn't been an issue until I tried to implement the sign up page, and now whether going to pages or running the test visit signup_path for the sign up page, I keep getting the following error:

undefined method `users_index_path' for #<#<Class:0x007f9e3e1d91b8>:0x007f9e3e1d1ff8>

I can't figure out what's going wrong here. When I run rake routes I get the following:

~/Coding/rails_projects/sample_app (sign-up*) ☔  rake routes
   Prefix Verb   URI Pattern               Controller#Action
    users GET    /users(.:format)          users#index
          POST   /users(.:format)          users#create
 new_user GET    /users/new(.:format)      users#new
edit_user GET    /users/:id/edit(.:format) users#edit
     user GET    /users/:id(.:format)      users#show
          PATCH  /users/:id(.:format)      users#update
          PUT    /users/:id(.:format)      users#update
          DELETE /users/:id(.:format)      users#destroy
     root GET    /                         static_pages#home
     help GET    /help(.:format)           static_pages#help
    about GET    /about(.:format)          static_pages#about
  contact GET    /contact(.:format)        static_pages#contact
   signup GET    /signup(.:format)         users#new

From that output, it looks to me like there should be a method users_index_path.

If it helps, my Users controller is the following:

class UsersController < ApplicationController
  def new
    @user = Users.new
  end

  def show
    @user = Users.find(params[:id])
  end
end

Using Rails 4.0.5.

Output from a page giving me the error:

enter image description here

Please keep in mind users_index_path is being called by Rails and not by me.

What happens if you change your User model file to user.rb, then in your controller's new action call @user = User.new. Your other directories and tables should be fine because they are supposed to be plural. your controller should be users_controller, and even your database table name should be plural like so create_table :users do |t|. — Justin
– Justin, Commented May 23, 2014 at 0:51
Not yet, unfortunately. Simply renaming the file didn't do it. — jdotjdot
– jdotjdot, Commented May 23, 2014 at 1:08

tompave · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-23 01:06:05Z

3

with

users GET    /users(.:format)          users#index
      POST   /users(.:format)          users#create

you'll have a users_path method that will generate the /users path. That path will lead to either the index action (with a GET request) or the create action (with a POST request).

Under the hood, form_for @user will call the users_path method and set things up to fire a POST on submit (when @user is a new record). The URL helper method is calculated dynamically from the class name. This is ok if you're using Rails' defaults, but if you've defined custom routes you'll need to specify the URL explicitly.

With this out of the way, let's look at your problem.

A model with a plural name, e.g. class Users, will confuse rails.
When you pass @user to form_for, Rails will look at the class name, notice that it's a plural word, and try its best to deal with the ambiguity.
Normally it would be user_path for singular routes (show, update, delete) and users_path for the plural ones (index, create). Here, however, users_path must be used for the singular routes, and Rails will fallback to use users_index_path for index and create.

This would be all right.... but you have defined the routes using the default statement, probably with something like

resources :users

Which is correct, but not compatible with your model name.

Either rename your routes (bad) or rename your model (good).

answered May 23, 2014 at 1:06

tompave

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7 Comments

jdotjdot Over a year ago

Thanks, this is helpful. I'm having trouble figuring out what the consequences of renaming the model are--how to generate a full list of all of the files and references that will have to be changed from users to user, and how to know when it should be plural and when it should be singular. Is there a command to generate this?

tompave Over a year ago

you'll also need to rename the DB table... the best thing would be to rollback the migration, go back to a previous commit, and re-generate the model

jdotjdot Over a year ago

There's no way I can go back to a previous commit; it's too far back.

tompave Over a year ago

well, if you're following Michael Hartl's tutorial, and are adding a form for the user, you are not that far from the beginning. In any case, rails destroy model users will remove all the files related to the model. Then you can re-generate them with the proper name.

jdotjdot Over a year ago

I ran rails destroy model users and then rails generate model user and have been trying to fix, but no I'm told to run rake db:migrate but when I do I get that table "users" already exists". However, nothing I did created an actual migration file, so I'm having trouble seeing where the issue is.\

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