Module ActionController::Routing
In: vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/routing.rb

Routing

The routing module provides URL rewriting in native Ruby. It‘s a way to redirect incoming requests to controllers and actions. This replaces mod_rewrite rules. Best of all Rails’ Routing works with any web server. Routes are defined in routes.rb in your RAILS_ROOT/config directory.

Consider the following route, installed by Rails when you generate your application:

  map.connect ':controller/:action/:id'

This route states that it expects requests to consist of a :controller followed by an :action that in turns is fed by some :id

Suppose you get an incoming request for /blog/edit/22, you‘ll end up with:

  params = { :controller => 'blog',
             :action     => 'edit'
             :id         => '22'
          }

Think of creating routes as drawing a map for your requests. The map tells them where to go based on some predefined pattern:

 ActionController::Routing::Routes.draw do |map|
  Pattern 1 tells some request to go to one place
  Pattern 2 tell them to go to another
  ...
 end

The following symbols are special:

  :controller maps to your controller name
  :action     maps to an action with your controllers

Other names simply map to a parameter as in the case of +:id+.

Route priority

Not all routes are created equally. Routes have priority defined by the order of appearance of the routes in the routes.rb file. The priority goes from top to bottom. The last route in that file is at the lowest priority will be applied last. If no route matches, 404 is returned.

Within blocks, the empty pattern goes first i.e. is at the highest priority. In practice this works out nicely:

 ActionController::Routing::Routes.draw do |map|
   map.with_options :controller => 'blog' do |blog|
     blog.show    '',  :action => 'list'
   end
   map.connect ':controller/:action/:view
 end

In this case, invoking blog controller (with an URL like ’/blog/’) without parameters will activate the ‘list’ action by default.

Defaults routes and default parameters

Setting a default route is straightforward in Rails because by appending a Hash to the end of your mapping you can set default parameters.

Example:

 ActionController::Routing:Routes.draw do |map|
   map.connect ':controller/:action/:id', :controller => 'blog'
 end

This sets up blog as the default controller if no other is specified. This means visiting ’/’ would invoke the blog controller.

More formally, you can define defaults in a route with the +:defaults+ key.

  map.connect ':controller/:id/:action', :action => 'show', :defaults => { :page => 'Dashboard' }

Named routes

Routes can be named with the syntax map.name_of_route options, allowing for easy reference within your source as name_of_route_url for the full URL and name_of_route_path for the URI path.

Example:

  # In routes.rb
  map.login 'login', :controller => 'accounts', :action => 'login'

  # With render, redirect_to, tests, etc.
  redirect_to login_url

Arguments can be passed as well.

  redirect_to show_item_path(:id => 25)

Use map.root as a shorthand to name a route for the root path ""

  # In routes.rb
  map.root :controller => 'blogs'

  # would recognize http://www.example.com/ as
  params = { :controller => 'blogs', :action => 'index' }

  # and provide these named routes
  root_url   # => 'http://www.example.com/'
  root_path  # => ''

Note: when using with_options, the route is simply named after the method you call on the block parameter rather than map.

  # In routes.rb
  map.with_options :controller => 'blog' do |blog|
    blog.show    '',            :action  => 'list'
    blog.delete  'delete/:id',  :action  => 'delete',
    blog.edit    'edit/:id',    :action  => 'edit'
  end

  # provides named routes for show, delete, and edit
  link_to @article.title, show_path(:id => @article.id)

Pretty URLs

Routes can generate pretty URLs. For example:

 map.connect 'articles/:year/:month/:day',
             :controller => 'articles',
             :action     => 'find_by_date',
             :year       => /\d{4}/,
             :month => /\d{1,2}/,
             :day   => /\d{1,2}/

 # Using the route above, the url below maps to:
 # params = {:year => '2005', :month => '11', :day => '06'}
 # http://localhost:3000/articles/2005/11/06

Regular Expressions and parameters

You can specify a reqular expression to define a format for a parameter.

 map.geocode 'geocode/:postalcode', :controller => 'geocode',
             :action => 'show', :postalcode => /\d{5}(-\d{4})?/

or more formally:

  map.geocode 'geocode/:postalcode', :controller => 'geocode',
                     :action => 'show',
                     :requirements { :postalcode => /\d{5}(-\d{4})?/ }

Route globbing

Specifying *[string] as part of a rule like :

 map.connect '*path' , :controller => 'blog' , :action => 'unrecognized?'

will glob all remaining parts of the route that were not recognized earlier. This idiom must appear at the end of the path. The globbed values are in params[:path] in this case.

Reloading routes

You can reload routes if you feel you must:

 Action::Controller::Routes.reload

This will clear all named routes and reload routes.rb

Testing Routes

The two main methods for testing your routes:

assert_routing

 def test_movie_route_properly_splits
  opts = {:controller => "plugin", :action => "checkout", :id => "2"}
  assert_routing "plugin/checkout/2", opts
 end

assert_routing lets you test whether or not the route properly resolves into options.

assert_recognizes

 def test_route_has_options
  opts = {:controller => "plugin", :action => "show", :id => "12"}
  assert_recognizes opts, "/plugins/show/12"
 end

Note the subtle difference between the two: assert_routing tests that an URL fits options while assert_recognizes tests that an URL breaks into parameters properly.

In tests you can simply pass the URL or named route to get or post.

 def send_to_jail
   get '/jail'
   assert_response :success
   assert_template "jail/front"
 end

 def goes_to_login
   get login_url
   #...
 end

Methods

Constants

SEPARATORS = %w( / ; . , ? )
Routes = RouteSet.new

Public Class methods

[Source]

     # File vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/routing.rb, line 310
310:       def controller_relative_to(controller, previous)
311:         if controller.nil?           then previous
312:         elsif controller[0] == ?/    then controller[1..-1]
313:         elsif %r{^(.*)/} =~ previous then "#{$1}/#{controller}"
314:         else controller
315:         end     
316:       end

[Source]

     # File vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/routing.rb, line 264
264:       def normalize_paths(paths)
265:         # do the hokey-pokey of path normalization...
266:         paths = paths.collect do |path|
267:           path = path.
268:             gsub("//", "/").           # replace double / chars with a single
269:             gsub("\\\\", "\\").        # replace double \ chars with a single
270:             gsub(%r{(.)[\\/]$}, '\1')  # drop final / or \ if path ends with it
271: 
272:           # eliminate .. paths where possible
273:           re = %r{\w+[/\\]\.\.[/\\]}
274:           path.gsub!(%r{\w+[/\\]\.\.[/\\]}, "") while path.match(re)
275:           path
276:         end
277: 
278:         # start with longest path, first
279:         paths = paths.uniq.sort_by { |path| - path.length }
280:       end

[Source]

     # File vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/routing.rb, line 282
282:       def possible_controllers
283:         unless @possible_controllers
284:           @possible_controllers = []
285:         
286:           paths = controller_paths.select { |path| File.directory?(path) && path != "." }
287: 
288:           seen_paths = Hash.new {|h, k| h[k] = true; false}
289:           normalize_paths(paths).each do |load_path|
290:             Dir["#{load_path}/**/*_controller.rb"].collect do |path|
291:               next if seen_paths[path.gsub(%r{^\.[/\\]}, "")]
292:               
293:               controller_name = path[(load_path.length + 1)..-1]
294:               
295:               controller_name.gsub!(/_controller\.rb\Z/, '')
296:               @possible_controllers << controller_name
297:             end
298:           end
299: 
300:           # remove duplicates
301:           @possible_controllers.uniq!
302:         end
303:         @possible_controllers
304:       end

[Source]

     # File vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/routing.rb, line 306
306:       def use_controllers!(controller_names)
307:         @possible_controllers = controller_names
308:       end

[Source]

     # File vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/routing.rb, line 256
256:       def with_controllers(names)
257:         prior_controllers = @possible_controllers
258:         use_controllers! names
259:         yield
260:       ensure
261:         use_controllers! prior_controllers
262:       end

[Validate]