URL parameter in the URL itself instead of after ? in Rails

Question

I have the following line in the routes:

match 'area/:area_id/stores', :to => "stores_directory#index", :as => "stores_directory"

I have a form where I can select an area_id as:

<%= form_tag stores_directory_path, :method=>:get do %>

<select id="area_id" name="area_id">
....
</select>

This ads the area_id as a parameter after ?. So, my question is: How would I make it to add it in between area and stores?

Answer 1

I see one solution (not the best maybe, but also quite acceptable). It is possible to write your own middleware to handle this request, but this is the wrong way I believe (in this case).

Instead, use JS redirect

This could be written as a method (example using JQuery):

$('#area_id option').click(function() {
  if (this.value) { // check value is not empty
    document.location.href = Routes.stores_directory_path({area_id: this.value})
  }
});

OR using options_for_select:

options = []
areas.each do |a|
  options << [a.to_s, a.id, {:onclick => "document.location.href = Routes.stores_directory_path({area_id: #{a.id}})"}]
end
options_for_select(options)

Here I used js-routes gem for nice url's.

Hope this will be helpful.