Rails - controller action name to string

Question

I have a Rails question.

How do I get a controller action's name inside the controller action?

For example, instead of

def create
  logger.info("create")
end

I want to write something like

def create
  logger.info(this_def_name)
end

What is a way to get this_def_name?

JellicleCat · Accepted Answer · 2023-05-03T20:02:54.733

364

Rails 2.X: @controller.action_name

Rails 3.1.X: controller.action_name, action_name

Rails 4+: action_name

edited May 03 '23 at 20:02

answered Nov 25 '10 at 06:11

JellicleCat

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5

Or 'controller.action_name' in Rails 3.0. This is the best way to access the action name in the view. – emk Feb 01 '11 at 19:59
2

If you want to use this in a `before_filter` with a block, do `before_filter { |controller| ... }`. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2669663/rails-before-filter-and-action-identification – Benjamin Oakes Feb 05 '13 at 17:43
3

FYI, `action_name` works in Rails 3.2.13, and `controller.action_name` doesn't. – Zach May 20 '14 at 21:55
rails 2.3.XX and @controller.action_name does not work, you must use just action_name for this version(s). – mkralla11 Sep 16 '14 at 13:27
Is there a symbol version? – Bogdan Gusiev May 13 '15 at 13:05
2

FYI `action_name` works in Rails 7.0.x still. – Joshua Pinter May 03 '23 at 17:30

mikej · Answer 2 · 2009-08-07T14:26:46.003

36

In the specific case of a Rails action (as opposed to the general case of getting the current method name) you can use params[:action]

Alternatively you might want to look into customising the Rails log format so that the action/method name is included by the format rather than it being in your log message.

edited Aug 07 '09 at 14:26

answered Aug 07 '09 at 14:11

mikej

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You used to be able to get the current action by calling action_name, I'm not sure if that still works, but I always thought it was a bit nicer than querying the params. – jonnii Aug 07 '09 at 14:46
Just to clarify, it's "controller.action_name" or "params[:action]", so you might do <% if controller.action_name == 'new' %> in the view. It works for me in Rails 3.2. – dmonopoly Mar 16 '12 at 10:43
1

You can also get the controller name via params[:controller] – Ash Blue Mar 18 '13 at 20:04
`action_name == 'new'` (unprefixed) still works for me in Rails 3.2 – Brendon Muir Apr 06 '13 at 00:57

score 19 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 15 '13 at 12:20

19

controller name:

<%= controller.controller_name %>

return => 'users'

action name:

<%= controller.action_name %>

return => 'show'

id:

<%= ActionController::Routing::Routes.recognize_path(request.url)[:id] %>

return => '23'

answered Mar 15 '13 at 12:20

dumP

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score 8 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 14 '12 at 12:25

8

This snippet works for Rails 3

class ReportsController < ApplicationController

  def summary
    logger.debug self.class.to_s + "." + self.action_name
  end

end

will print

. . .
ReportsController.summary
. . .

answered Jan 14 '12 at 12:25

Vladimir Kroz

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score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 07 '09 at 14:58

3

mikej's answer was very precise and helpful, but the the thing i also wanted to know was how to get current method name in rails.

found out it's possible with self.current_method

easily found at http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/75258

answered Aug 07 '09 at 14:58

Pavel K.

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score -1 · Answer 6 · edited Jun 02 '21 at 15:08

-1

You can get the Action Name like this

Controller Method

def abc

   params[:action] #you can store this any variable or you can directly compare them.

   ab == params[:action] 
 
end

This supports from rails 4 to rails 6 versions.

edited Jun 02 '21 at 15:08

Imam

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answered May 31 '21 at 04:17

Akash prajapati

1

1

`params[:action]` this method is already answered by other members. Your codeblock is not clear either, what's `ab` in there ? – Imam May 31 '21 at 05:12

score -4 · Answer 7 · edited May 23 '12 at 17:17

-4

I just did the same. I did it in helper controller, my code is:

def get_controller_name
  controller_name    
end


def get_action_name
  action_name   
end

These methods will return current contoller and action name. Hope it helps

edited May 23 '12 at 17:17

mikeycgto

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answered Aug 23 '11 at 16:45

Rushabh Ajay Hathi

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Confusing. Why wrap `controller_name`, which is a method that returns the name of the current controller, in another method that just *calls* `controller_name`? Why not just call `controller_name` and be done with it? – piersadrian Jul 21 '12 at 23:32

Rails - controller action name to string

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