Question

I’m trying to insert a locale at the beginning of a request URI in a Rails 3.1 app if it is missing. I created a Ruby script that does what I want:

uri = "/products"
re  = /\A\/((?:[a-z]{2,2})(?:[-|_](?:[A-Z]{2,2}))?)(\/.*)\Z/

unless uri =~ re
  uri = "/en#{uri}"
end

puts uri

So, if the request URI is /en-GB/products (the locale is already present), it doesn’t do anything. If it is /products (like the example above), it spits out /en/products.

Now I’m trying to get it to work in my routes file. Here’s what I’ve attempted:

match "(*all)", :to => redirect do |params, request|
  uri = request.path_info
  re  = /\A\/((?:[a-z]{2,2})(?:[-|_](?:[A-Z]{2,2}))?)(\/.*)\Z/

  unless uri =~ re
    uri = "/en#{uri}"
  end

  "#{request.scheme}://#{request.host_with_port}#{uri}"
end

My problem is that I can’t even get inside the match block. I keep getting an ArgumentError: redirection argument not supported.

I’ve tried changing it to match "(*all)" => redirect do |params, request| to no avail.

I’m looking at the Rails 3.1 API documentation for these examples.

Is the routes file the place to try and do this? It makes the most sense to me.

Answer 1

Introducing logic in routes smells for me. Controllers are meant for that, and I would use optional scope in routes and before_filter in controller with redirect_to

routes.rb – keep it simple:

scope '(:locale)', :constraints => {:locale=> /[a-z]{2}(-[A-Z]{2})?/ } do
  match 'url1' ...
  match 'other' ...
end

controller:

before_filter :check_locale

protected

def check_locale
  redirect_to "/en#{request.path_info}" if params[:locale].blank?
end

(the above is written from memory)