Deleting an Idea

The final action to perform is deleting an idea.

In this page, we will delete the existing idea.

adding delete option in index page

Let’s update an action link in the index page so that one can perform deleting operation.

Add following changes to app/views/ideas/index.html.erb file to add deleting feature:

<table>
  <tr>
    <th>Title</th>
    <th>Description</th>
    <th colspan="3">Actions</th>
  </tr>

  <% @ideas.each do |idea| %>
    <tr>
      <td><%= idea.title %></td>
      <td><%= idea.description %></td>
      <td><%= link_to 'Show', idea_path(idea) %></td>
      <td><%= link_to 'Edit', edit_idea_path(idea) %></td>
      <td><%= link_to 'Delete', idea_path(idea) %></td>
    </tr>
  <% end %>
</table>

On reloading the ideas index page, https://localhost:3000/ideas, you will see following:

Now, click on the Delete link to perform deletion of any of the idea. See what happens.

The reason is simple. Right now the URL for delete link is GET /ideas/:id which is exactly same as for showing idea (check by viewing its page source). We actually need DELETE /ideas/:id.

delete route

Let’s update our routes.rb file add delete route.

Rails.application.routes.draw do

  root 'ideas#index'
  resources :ideas, only: [:index, :show, :new, :create, :edit, :update, :destroy]

end

NOTE: Notice :destroy above which add delete route for idea resource, DELETE /ideas/:id.

Confirm with rails routes:

rails routes | grep 'idea'
  ...
  DELETE /ideas/:id(.:format)     ideas#destroy

destroy controller action

Add following controller action in IdeasController:

def destroy
  @idea = Idea.find(params[:id])
  @idea.destroy

  redirect_to ideas_path
end

View change

The last thing remaining is to update the Delete link in order to perform delete operation instead of showing.

To do that just add method option with :delete value. See Rails URLHelper link_to.

Update the link_to with Delete label as follows:

<%= link_to 'Delete', idea_path(idea), method: :delete %>

Now, click on the Delete link and see what happens.

Let’s update our delete link to ask confirmation from user before performing delete. Now, update the link_toas follows:

<%= link_to 'Delete', idea_path(idea), method: :delete,
            data: { confirm: 'Are you sure, you want to delete this idea?' } %>

Now, click on the Delete link and see the updated behavior. You will notice a popup with confirmation message.

On click OK, the idea will be delete from the application.