I've run into an error with the Rails 3.1 asset pipeline where one of my controllers happens to be named AssetsController:

No route matches {:action=>"show", :controller=>"assets", :id=>"web-app-theme/base", :format=>"css", nil=>:request}

Hmmm. What to do? First, an explanation.

The Rails 3.1 Assets "Controller"

Here's what's happening:

• I have an assets controller, so I also have the following in my config/routes.rb file: resources :assets.
• I am using the new asset pipeline in Rails 3.1.
• I tried renaming the assets path like so: config.assets.prefix = "/s", but it apparently didn't work.
• I can confirm its a name collision because if I comment out the resources line in config/routes.rb, there is no error.

Working Around the Assets Controller Name Collision

I figure there are a few options:

• Namespace my assets controller to be Accounts::AssetsController. I had originally opted agains that for simplicities sake, but it might be a solid solution. I do not want to namespace my models though.
• Find another configuration setting to alter the "assets" name for the asset pipeline. There is config.assets.manifest, but that is for pre-compiling assets, not accessing them.

Ultimately it seems that the nexus of this problem is that the tag helpers do not use the custom config.assets.prefix value. Thankfully, there has been a commit to fix it. Alas, it seems to have been overlooked in recent tags and releases.

As a quick workaround, I'm not using the tag helpers, just accessing the css files directly.

UPDATE: Hooray! Rails developer spastorino pulled request 3092 to fix this issue. That is so great. FWIW - my initial experience working with the Rails development community has been positively impressive.

¥