Rails detect if request was AJAX

Is it AJAX or not? Let Rails Detect it for You! 🤔💻

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you only want to respond to a request if it was made through AJAX? Maybe you want to render a specific view for AJAX requests, but redirect to another page if it was a regular HTTP request. In this blog post, we'll explore how you can easily check if a request was made via AJAX in Rails and provide you with simple solutions to your problem. Let's dive in! 🏊‍♀️🏄‍♂️

The Dilemma 💭

In our example, the questioner wants to respond differently depending on whether the request was made via AJAX. They want to render a specific HTML view if it was an AJAX request, but redirect to the root URL for any other type of request. The question is, how do they determine if the request was AJAX or not? 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♀️

Solution 1: Using the request.xhr? Method ✅

Rails provides a simple and elegant way to check if a request was made via AJAX by using the request.xhr? method. This method returns true if the request was made via XMLHttpRequest (AJAX), and false otherwise. Let's take a look at how it can be used in our example:

def action
   @model = Model.find(params[:id])

   respond_to do |format|
      if request.xhr? # Using the request.xhr? method
         format.html # Render the action.html.erb view
      else
         format.html { redirect_to root_url } # Redirect to the root URL
      end
   end
end

With just one line of code, request.xhr?, we can determine if the request was AJAX or not, and respond accordingly. 🎉

Solution 2: Using the remote: true Option in Rails Forms 📝

Often, AJAX requests are made using Rails forms with the remote: true option. This option triggers an AJAX request instead of a regular form submission. By checking for the presence of this option in the request parameters, we can also determine if the request was made via AJAX. Let's see how it's done:

def action
   @model = Model.find(params[:id])

   respond_to do |format|
      if params[:remote] # Checking for the presence of the "remote" parameter
         format.html # Render the action.html.erb view
      else
         format.html { redirect_to root_url } # Redirect to the root URL
      end
   end
end

By checking if the remote parameter is present in the request parameters, we can conclude that it was an AJAX request. Pretty neat, right? 😎

Your Turn! 🚀

Now that you know how to determine if a request was made via AJAX in Rails, it's time to put your newfound knowledge into action! Update your code and see how it behaves differently for AJAX and regular requests. 🤩

We hope you found this blog post helpful in solving your AJAX detection problem in Rails. If you have any other questions or need further assistance, feel free to leave a comment below. Let's keep the conversation going! 💬💪

Happy coding! 💻💙