Question

I’m having trouble getting url_for to render take to_param into account when choosing which route to use.

I have two sets of routes that use the same model (Foo). If Foo.is_special, the url should map to /special/:action. If it isn’t, it should map to /:id/:action. Because it’s the same model, I’d like url_for to automatically know which path to map to, depending on is_special.

routes.rb:

map.special 'special/:action', :controller => 'bar', :id => 'special'
map.regular ':id/:action', :controller => 'bar', :id => /\d+/

foo.rb:

def to_param
   is_special ? 'special' : id.to_s
end

This works when I set :id explicitly. For example:

url_for(:controller => 'bar', :id => 'special')
url_for(:controller => 'bar', :id => @foo)

Generates the correct url for special when :id is set explicitly to ‘special’, and when @foo is_special == false. However, when @foo.is_special == true, the special route isn’t recognized.

Answer 1

Not sure if this is the expected behavior, but this works:

map.special ':id/:action', :controller => 'bar', :id => 'special'

Instead of

map.special 'special/:action', :controller => 'bar', :id => 'special'