Question

I’m putting together a short URL functionality for an app I’m working on and now have it working and turning longer URLs into a short URL by base36 encoding the ID of a record pointing to the longer URL, for example:

http://localhost:3000/7ps -> http://localhost:3000/the/long/url

I am struggling to write a route which will intercept requests for the short URL whilst still allowing requests for other valid URLs in the app.

Is there a route I can use which will only target base36 encoded values after the domain?

Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

You can add:

map.encoded ":encoded_url", :controller => :encoded_urls, :action => :please_decode_me

at the end of your routes. Then it shoudl catch everything that is not catched by other routes.