Question

Given the following routes.rb file:

# Add Admin section routes
 map.namespace :admin do |admin|
   admin.resources :admin_users
   admin.resources :admin_user_sessions, :as => :sessions
   admin.resources :dashboard

   # Authentication Elements
   admin.login '/login',  :controller => 'admin_user_sessions', :action => 'new'    
   admin.logout '/logout', :controller => 'admin_user_sessions', :action => 'destroy'

   # Default is login page for admin_users
   admin.root :controller => 'admin_user_sessions', :action => 'new'
end

Is it possible to alias the ‘admin’ section to something else without having to change every redirection and link_to in the application? The main reason is that it’s something I’d like to be configurable on the fly and hopefully make it also a bit less easy to guess.

Answer 1

map.namespace method just sets some common options for routes inside its block. It uses with_options method:

# File actionpack/lib/action_controller/routing/route_set.rb, line 47
        def namespace(name, options = {}, &block)
          if options[:namespace]
            with_options({:path_prefix => "#{options.delete(:path_prefix)}/#{name}", :name_prefix => "#{options.delete(:name_prefix)}#{name}_", :namespace => "#{options.delete(:namespace)}#{name}/" }.merge(options), &block)
          else
            with_options({:path_prefix => name, :name_prefix => "#{name}_", :namespace => "#{name}/" }.merge(options), &block)
          end
        end

So it is possible to use with_options method directly instead of namespace:

map.with_options(:path_prefix => "yournewprefix", :name_prefix => "admin_", :namespace => "admin/" ) do |admin|  
  admin.resources :admin_users
  # ....
end

And you can continue to use routes the same way as before, but prefix will be “yournewprefix” instead of “admin”

admin_admin_users_path #=> /yournewprefix/admin_users