Creating a slug in rails without defining it in the model

Question

I want to create a friendly URL in rails by overiding the to_params method:

 def to_param
     "#{id}-#{brand}-#{name}"
 end 

But what if I am calling the object from another controller. For example, if I have a Site controller and a Product controller... I want to create an action in the Site controller that displays the product rather than using the show action in the Products controller.

How would I accomplish this?

Answer 1

You should use an already existent gem for this case. The friendly_id gem provides the functionality you are looking for. Check their guide for more information about to setup and use.

For a simple example, as taken from here:

in your model:

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :content, :title

  extend FriendlyId
  friendly_id :title, use: :slugged
end

then create a migration:

$ rails g migration add_slug_to_posts slug:string
$ rake db:migrate

and fill it:

class AddSlugToPosts < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    add_column :posts, :slug, :string
    add_index :posts, :slug
  end
end