Passing array of parameters through get in rails

Solution 1:

You should stick to using a GET request if you are not changing the state of anything, and all you want to to access a read only value.

To send an array of ids to rails in a GET request simply name your variable with square brackets at the end.

//angular snippet

$http.(method:'GET',
  ...
  params: {'channel_id':2, 'product_ids[]': productIds}  
  //where productIds is an array of integers
  ...
)

Do not concatenate your ids as a comma separated list, just pass them individually redundantly. So in the url it would look something like this:

?channel_id=2&product_ids[]=6900&product_ids[]=6901

url encoded it will actually be more like this:

?channel_id=2&product_ids%5B%5D=6900&product_ids%5B%5D=6901

Rails will separate this back out for you.

Parameters: {"channel_id"=>"2", "product_ids"=>["6900", "6901"]}

Solution 2:

No, GET can only put variables on the url itself. If you want the URL to be shorter, you have to POST. That's a limitation feature of HTTP, not Rails.

Solution 3:

I recently wanted to do this and found a workaround that is a little less complex, and so has some complexity limitations but may also be easier to implement. Can't speak to security, etc.

If you pass your array values as a string with a delimiter, e.g.

http://example.com/controller?job_ids=2342,2354,25245

Then you can take the result and parse it back to what you want:

job_ids = params[:job_ids].split(',')

Then do whatever:

    job_ids.each do |job_id|
      job = Job.find(job_id.to_i)
    end

etc