ruby on rails form not doing correct action

Question

I'm trying to edit a form, the route is controller/id/action for edit so for example

people/124321/edit

I'm trying to make this form submit to the update action using this code:

<% form_for :probe, @probe, :action => "update" do |f| %>
   ...
   ...
   ...
   <%= submit_tag 'Submit' %>
<% end %>

When I click submit, it gives me an error stating

Unknown Action. No action responded to (id).

Edit

The only thing in my routes specified for probes is map.resources :probes

RoR just did the people/124321/edit by itself when I generated the controller.

Rake routes shows this

probes       GET /probes(.:format) {:controller=>"probes", :action=>"index"}
             POST   /probes(.:format) {:controller=>"probes", :action=>"create"}
new_probe    GET    /probes/new(.:format) {:controller=>"probes", :action=>"new"}
edit_probe   GET    /probes/:id/edit(.:format) {:controller=>"probes",action=>"edit"}
             GET    /probes/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"probes", :action=>"show"}
             PUT    /probes/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"probes", :action=>"update"}
             DELETE /probes/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"probes", :action=>"destroy"}

Edit 2 Probe Controller

    def edit
     @probe = Probe.find(params[:id])
    end

    def update
    @probe = Probe.find(params[:id])
    debugger
    if @probe.update_attributes(params[:probe])
      flash[:notice] = "Successfully updated probe."
      redirect_to probes_path
    else
      render :action => 'edit'
    end
  end

Answer 1

It's hard to say exactly since you have posted very little supporting details for your question, but my guess is that your routes file is set up such that the precedence of something matching :controller/:action/:id comes before the route you're aiming for, :controller/:id/:action.

Routes are evaluated top-down, first match wins.

I'll echo John's answer, too. You shouldn't need to specify :action => 'update', and in fact these days I usually extract the form out of both new.html.erb and edit.html.erb into a partial _form.html.erb. form_for will figure out if the object is a new record and POST to either the create or update action, as appropriate.

I have seen some situations in the past where route changes reloaded in development mode confuse the routing code, which is usually fixed by restarting the server.

rake routes is also a good debugging tool. Check the page source to see what Rails has used for the form's action attribute, then scan down the output of rake routes to see where the request will end up.

Answer 2

If you're using RESTful resources, then you should just be able to do this:

<% form_for(@probe) do |f| %>
  .
  .
  .
  <%= f.submit 'Submit' %>
<% end %>

Rails can work out whether you're creating a new record or updating an existing one. See Binding a Form to an Object for further details.

Also, note the use of f.submit in my example. The *_tag helpers go together, so you wouldn't usually see a form_for helper with a submit_tag.

Answer 3

"Unknown Action. No action responded to (id)." sounds like a routing problem.

Have you removed or commented out the default routes in your routes.rb file?

map.connect ':controller/:action/:id'
map.connect ':controller/:action/:id.:format'

If the default routes are being run it could be swapping the id for the action?