Rails path and url helpers

Sometimes I forget the simple differences between Rail’s helpers. This mini post is so I don’t forget.

*_path
Generates relative URLs: /users
Used in views by link_to, form_for, etc. (per DHH)
The browser maps relative URLs to absolute URLs based on the current page’s protocol and host (/users on the page http://domain.com/new translates to http://domain.com/users)

*_url
Generates absolute URLs: http://domain.com/users
Used in controllers by redirect_to (per DHH) because RFC 2616 states that redirects must be absolute URLS. This is true, however, modern browsers can handle relative URL redirects now too