Question

I was wondering if it is possible to route to something like this /:user_id user_id is a custom id that doesn’t just use integers it uses other characters like so NM-001. Then in my controller I have @user = User.find(params[:user_id]). Then in view <%= @user.name %>

Answer 1

Yes, you can have such a route. However, if your :user_id will contain periods then you’ll want to include

:constraints => { :user_id => /.*/ }

in the route options to keep Rails from trying to interpret the .whatever part of the :user_id as a format specifier.

Then, you’ll get params[:user_id] in your controller and you can turn that into an object however you want. You’d probably want to do what mischa said in the comments:

@user = User.find_by_user_id(params[:user_id])

Also, if you really want to use /:user_id as your route, you’ll want to make sure that none of your userids match any of your present or future top-level routes.