resource_awareness

resource_awareness makes information about a Rails application’s resources (as defined via the ‘resource/s’ routing DSL methods) available via Rails.application.resource_definitions. Each resource object encapsulates information such as the resource’s name, home route, path and the controller that is handling it:

attribute	example
id	post_comments
name	comments
singular_name	comment
home_route	[the ‘post_comments’ named route]
path_prefix	/posts/:post_id
path	/posts/:post_id/comments
prefix_parameters	[:post_id]
controller_path	comments
controller	CommentsController

Resources can be retrieved by id using bracket syntax:

Rails.application.resource_definitions['post_comments']

Controllers get a resource_definition instance method to controllers returning the resource they are handling, if any.

Resources have a to_xml method that makes it trivial to expose an application’s resource as a resource in turn:

# config/routes.rb
resources :resources

# app/controllers/resources_controller.rb
respond_to :xml

def index
  respond_with Rails.application.resource_definitions
end

# At this point, resource information is available at /resources.xml

Lastly, resource_awareness adds a rake resources tasks that lists an application’s resources, just like rake routes does for routes

Please note that resource_awareness is experimental and interfaces are likely to change. I very much welcome suggestions or comments!

Installation

gem install resource_awareness