This gem is a cutomized version of github.com/bumi/find_by_param

find_by_param helps you dealing with permalinks and finding objects by our permalink value

class Post < ActiveRecord:Base
  make_permalink :with => :title
end

now you can do

Post.find_by_param(...)

If you have a permalink-column find_by_param saves the permalink there and uses that otherwise it just uses the provided attribute.

% gem install find_by_param

% gem build find_by_param.gemspec
% gem install find_by_param-VERSION.gem

% script/plugin install git://github.com/bumi/find_by_param.git

make_permalink :with => :login
make_permalink :with => :title, :prepend_id => true
make_permalink :with => :name, :forbidden => %w(new edit)

Post.create(:title => "hey ho let's go!").to_param #=> "hey-ho-lets-go"
          # ... to_param is the method Rails calls to create the URL values

Post.find_by_param("hey-ho-lets-go") #=> <Post>

Post.find_by_param("is-not-there")   #=> nil
Post.find_by_param!("is-not-there")  #=> raises ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound

The following options may be used, when configuring the permalink generation with make_permalink.

• :with (required)

  The attribute that should be used as permalink

• :field

  The name of your permalink column. make_permalink first checks if there is a column.

• :prepend_id => [true|false]

  Do you want to prepend the ID to the permalink? for URLs like: posts/123-my-post-title - find_by_param uses the ID column to search.

• :param_size => [Number]

  Desired maximum size of the permalink, default is 50.

• :escape => [true|false]

  Do you want to escape the permalink value? (strip chars like öä?&) - actually you must do that

• :forbidden => [Regexp|String|Array of Strings]

  Define which values should be forbidden. This is useful when combining user defined values to generate permalinks in combination with restful routing. Make sure, especially in the case of a Regexp argument, that values may become valid by adding or incrementing a trailing integer.

The following methods are added as public methods to all classes containing a permalink field.

• find_by_param(id)

  Look up a value by its permalink value, returns matching instance or nil, if none is found.

• find_by_param!(id)

  Look up a value by its permalink value, returns matching instance or raises ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound, if none is found.

• Alex Sharp (github.com/ajsharp) pointed to an issue with STI. Better call make_permalink in every child class and not only in the parent class..

• write nice docs

• write nicer tests

Copyright © 2007 [Michael Bumann - Railslove.com], released under the MIT license