Polymorphic URL helpers are methods for smart resolution to a named route call when given an ActiveRecord model instance. They are to be used in combination with ActionController::Resources.

These methods are useful when you want to generate correct URL or path to a RESTful resource without having to know the exact type of the record in question.

Nested resources and/or namespaces are also supported, as illustrated in the example:

polymorphic_url([:admin, @article, @comment])
#-> results in:
admin_article_comment_url(@article, @comment)

Usage within the framework

Polymorphic URL helpers are used in a number of places throughout the Rails framework:

• url_for, so you can use it with a record as the argument, e.g. url_for(@article);
• ActionView::Helpers::FormHelper uses polymorphic_path, so you can write form_for(@article) without having to specify :url parameter for the form action;
• redirect_to (which, in fact, uses url_for) so you can write redirect_to(post) in your controllers;
• ActionView::Helpers::AtomFeedHelper, so you don’t have to explicitly specify URLs for feed entries.

Prefixed polymorphic helpers

In addition to polymorphic_url and polymorphic_path methods, a number of prefixed helpers are available as a shorthand to :action => "…" in options. Those are:

• edit_polymorphic_url, edit_polymorphic_path
• new_polymorphic_url, new_polymorphic_path
• formatted_polymorphic_url, formatted_polymorphic_path

Example usage:

edit_polymorphic_path(@post)
#=> /posts/1/edit

formatted_polymorphic_path([@post, :pdf])
#=> /posts/1.pdf