Root-level routing with Ruby on Rails? - ruby-on-rails

How do I efficiently enable root-level routing with Ruby on Rails?
For example, instead of having:
/questions/a-question-here
I want:
/a-question-here
What technology would I use, and how would I configure the routing to enable this?
EDIT: I also have other models such as videos and users, so I'd like the routing to match other controllers as well. For example, how do I get /username to go to some action in the Users controller and /some-video-title to go to some action in the Videos controller?
Thanks for all your help, people.

Rails has a very configurable routing layer built in. Good documentation here:
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html
Your route could end up looking something like this:
match ":id" => "questions#show"
Depending on where you put that, it could override a lot of other routes, so be aware of that.

Related

Which routes should I use in rails match :controller(/:action(/:id)) or resources?

I am using match :controller(/:action(/:id)) as routing system.
I didn't see anyone using this type of routing system. All are using resources routes.
Is this the best way to make routing or what is the best preference for routing?
It is RESTful routing you are missing :)
Deprecate method "match" in routes.rb
... proposal is to announce 'match' method in routes.rb as deprecated and
later(e.g. rails 5.0) put it to "private methods" section.
It will encourage people to use "pure" restful methods-verbs like put
post get etc and will raise knowledge of their meaning and goal. (GET
for retrieving data, POST for state changing requests)
Why? - my points are described at http://homakov.blogspot.ru/2012/04/whitelist-your-routes-match-is-evil.html
I think #AndreyDeineko provided a good answer.
Another problem with match :controller(/:action(/:id)) I noticed a while ago, is that it might lead to security issues:
Imagine you have methods your application_controller.rb that are not marked as private. Since all other controllers inherit from ApplicationController everyone can call these methods just by guessing names.
You can use any routes you want unless you are creating an API. If you are creating an API, you need RESTful routes. resources provides you with restful routes.

User defined routes in Rails

There is a lot of good information on routing in Rails. I must be missing something, but I can't seem to find a good example of a Rails application that allows dynamically defined user specific routes.
For example, my application is hosted at:
www.thing.com
... and serves out user generated content.
I'd like to give the user an option to define a suffix that let's them share a somewhat customized URL to their content. For example, if a user 'joe' generates some car info they might want to make it avilable via joescars at:
www.thing.com/joescars
Maybe later they decide they want to serve it out under 'carsbyjoe' at:
www.thing.com/carsbyjoe
I can handle limiting what suffixs are valid. Is there a Rails way to codify this kind of dynamic routing?
There is a way to do this. In your config/routes file add a route that says get '/:user_route' => 'somecontroller#someaction'. You'll have to put it at the very bottom because routes are matched from top to bottom and this will match things like /users or other routes you'll likely want directed elsewhere.
Then, in your controller you can access params[:user_route] to show the appropriate content. There are a number of ways to store this custom content in your database, depending on your needs. You might have a model representing these custom routes like CustomRoute.find_by_route(params[:user_route]), or maybe each user will have a custom route so you could do User.find_by_route(params[:user_route]).custom_page and each User has one custom_page.

Ruby on Rails database driven router to support fully customizable urls

I'm planning to port our current cms (written in PHP) to Rails. All parts do well, except for one: routing.
Like most cms systems, the routing in our cms based on a database with pages, which are linked to modules, controllers and actions. On this approach a user can fully customize or specify it's own urls.
I know that Rails (and most (application) frameworks have the approach of defining routes in a file, but I hope this is possible.
The approach our users should have is:
add new page
select type (news, form, product, ...)
select an item (select which form, blog or product should be displayed)
enter a url for that page
Special the last point (4) is important. A user should be able to add form A to /contact-us, and form B to /clients/register-as-new-client e.g.
On a request the router needs to do a database query with the page url, to find out which controller, task and parameters should be dispatched.
Question has been updated, and i don't think this is a valid answer anymore
we have a similar paging system. we use a routing glob. in routes.rb:
get 'pages/*lookup_path', to: 'pages#show', defaults: { format: 'html' }, as: 'page'
Just parse params[:lookup_path] in PagesController to suit your needs
'http://localhost/pages/users/'
params[:lookup_path] #=> users/
'http://localhost/pages/users/23'
params[:lookup_path] #=> users/23
'http://localhost/pages/people/1'
params[:lookup_path] #=> people/1
Although this solution isn't ReSTful, I think this should solve the issue.
Regardless, Rails uses routes in a file. You cannot change this since the framework heralds "convention over configiuration". All I can do is point you in a direction to minimize this.
There is a catchall route in Rails (on RailsCasts, and on StackOverflow) which you can use to direct all routing to one controller action. You may further customize the routing behaviour in that method
You could also make a route like…
:controller/:action => Controller::Action
…as is done in CodeIgniter, but now your methods have to have names like contact-us and register-as-a-new-client.

Beginner with Rails 3.1 and "static" pages

I just started deploying a Rails website. In fact, I started programming on Rails 2 days ago.
I've created a new project, added some gems, etc. Everything is working properly, and I have some basic knowledge on how all works.
The thing is that what I want to create is a simple website with some sections (let's say, News, Contact, About, Products...). All this content is kinda static.
But I came in a problem. I don't really know what to do in order to create them. What I want, for example, is something like mypage.com/products/fashionableproduct, mypage.com/about, etc, or even mypage.com/page/products.
I thought about creating a Controller, then an action for each page... afterwards, I came up with other solution: scaffolding. Creating a resource called page, that has a title, etc...
I'm really a beginner on this topic, and I would like to hear your helpful voice.
Thanks!
Check out https://github.com/thoughtbot/high_voltage for static pages for Rails.
And check out http://railscasts.com/episodes/30-pretty-page-title for setting page titles.
The paths to your files are determined by your routes. The configuration file for routes is located at config/routes.rb. You can match a URL path, and then point to a given resource. More information about routes here: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html
If you generate a controller, you can process any dynamic data and then pass this data to these "kinda static" pages. Here is an example configuration that would match the path "mypage.com/about" and display the appropriate page:
# config/routes.rb
match "/about" => "example_controller#about"
# app/controllers/example_controller.rb
class ExampleController < ApplicationController
def about
# calculations
end
end
# app/views/example/about.html.erb
<!-- This is your HTML page -->
I think the title of your post might be a bit misleading. I have the feeling you don't want static pages but some database stored content. Just like Ben Simpson tells you to do, create a normal pages controller and make it work.
In the end you might want to customize some routes to get them to be exactly the way you want as in your examples.
Since you just started the app, I strongly recommend you start over and make a new app with Rails 3.1 which is the most current version and learn how to do the basics through http://guides.rubyonrails.org/ and a few other sources such as http://railscasts.com.
You will then learn Rails the right way from the beginning. Good luck and have fun in the process.

custom routing in rails

I have a rails application that has a model named graphic and as any rails application there is normal routing like this
something.com/graphics/1
something.com/graphics/2
something.com/graphics/3
which will take you to the appropriate show pages. That I understand this is done in my routes by this statement
resources :graphics
Now come to find out the client wants to have the url to be like this
something.com/1
something.com/2
something.com/3
so if there is a number directly after the root url then like it to the graphic show action....any ideas on how to do this without messing up any other models
Seems like you are looking for:
match "/:id" => "graphics#show"
You can refer to http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html for any further modifications.

Resources