How to create app-wide slug routing for Rails app?

by

There may be a way to do this with freindly_id but i think the problem with friendly id is things are scoped by model.

If I wanted truely sitewide slugging I would create a slugs table with a polymorphic relationship to all my models.

Sluggable_type and sluggable_id and then a slug field with the complete permalink/slug.

+---------------------------------------------+
| sluggable_type | sluggable_id |     slug    |
|      user      |       13     |  users/john |
+---------------------------------------------+

Now i could do do a wildcard catch all route or create the routes for all my slugs at runtime and force a route refresh when a model is updated that was under this sluggable control.

routes.rb

  get "/*segments",
               :controller => 'slugs',
               :action => 'dynamicroute'

Now in your SlugsController implement a method like

def dynamicroute
  segments = params[:segments]
  slugs.find_by_slug(segments)
  slug.sluggable_type.constantize.find(slug.sluggable_id) #retrive real record
  #some magic to handle the slugged item maybe redirect to the appropriate
  #controller or somehow call the show view for that controller
end

OR

routes.rb

begin  
  Slug.all.each do |s|
    begin
      get "#{s.slug}" => "#{s.sluggable_type.demodulize.pluralize.camelize}#show"
    rescue
    end
  end
rescue
end

If you use the 2nd approach to routing make sure you call

YOUR_APP_NAME::Application.reload_routes!

After editing any slugged record to refresh the routing table.

We’ve had similar issues and we may try our hand at gemifying this approach.

More Related Contents:

  1. Rails Routes based on condition
  2. Changing the base URL for Rails 3 development
  3. Can Rails Routing Helpers (i.e. mymodel_path(model)) be Used in Models?
  4. How can I rename a database column in a Ruby on Rails migration?
  5. How to get a random number in Ruby
  6. Why do routes with a dot in a parameter fail to match?
  7. Repairing Postgresql after upgrading to OSX 10.7 Lion
  8. PG::Error: SELECT DISTINCT, ORDER BY expressions must appear in select list
  9. Best way to create unique token in Rails?
  10. When to use a “has_many :through” relation in Rails?
  11. rake db:schema:load vs. migrations
  12. ActiveRecord Find By Year, Day or Month on a Date field
  13. How to fix the uninitialized constant Rake::DSL problem on Heroku?
  14. Rails 3: Multiple Select with has_many through associations
  15. What is the replacement for ActionController::Base.relative_url_root?
  16. Rails 3 submit a form with multiple records
  17. How to match accented characters with a regex?
  18. Delete link sends “Get” instead of “Delete” in Rails 3 view
  19. f.error_messages in Rails 3.0
  20. Convert UTC to local time in Rails 3
  21. Scope with join on :has_many :through association
  22. Remote mysql database on Heroku app
  23. How to implement bulk insert in Rails 3
  24. How do I extract Rails view helpers into a gem?
  25. How to make Devise redirect after confirmation
  26. How to set default rails version for a project?
  27. jQuery post to Rails
  28. Rails devise: user_signed_in? not working
  29. rails 3 has_many :through Form with checkboxes
  30. Customizing Devise error messages in Rails 3?

Leave a Comment