Rails - Nov 2007 - REST: Do I have to use the primary_key in the path?

Is there a way to use something other than the an object''s ID in a
REST-ful API?

For example, if an application stores a collection of plants, can a
plant be referenced by the ''scientific_name'' rather than the
''primary_key''?  If so how?

Taking it one step further, is there a way to automatically strip out
underscores from the scientific name before doing a find?

This would be an ideal URL:

/plants/Lilium_humboldtii    (instead of /plants/345)

where this plant''s scientific name is ''Lilium
humboldtii''.

Thanks,
Scott
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On Nov 26, 2007 4:11 PM, Scott
<scottbbrady-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
> Is there a way to use something other than the an object''s ID in a
> REST-ful API?
>
> For example, if an application stores a collection of plants, can a
> plant be referenced by the ''scientific_name'' rather than
the
> ''primary_key''?  If so how?
>
> Taking it one step further, is there a way to automatically strip out
> underscores from the scientific name before doing a find?
>
> This would be an ideal URL:
>
> /plants/Lilium_humboldtii    (instead of /plants/345)
>
> where this plant''s scientific name is ''Lilium
humboldtii''.
>
>
You can achieve this in a number of different ways.  I like the way the
friendly_identifier plugin works.

http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/friendly_identifier

Michael Guterl

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Scott wrote:
> Is there a way to use something other than the an object''s ID in a
> REST-ful API?
> 
> For example, if an application stores a collection of plants, can a
> plant be referenced by the ''scientific_name'' rather than
the
> ''primary_key''?  If so how?
> 
> Taking it one step further, is there a way to automatically strip out
> underscores from the scientific name before doing a find?
> 
> This would be an ideal URL:
> 
> /plants/Lilium_humboldtii    (instead of /plants/345)
> 
> where this plant''s scientific name is ''Lilium
humboldtii''.
You can use anything in a route (subject to HTTP URL format specs). In 
your model, you can override #to_param to change what gets put in the 
URL by the _path helper, and in the controller you can use params[:id] 
any way you''d like.  To work with a user URL like so:

User:

def to_param
  self.username
end

UsersController:

def show
  @user = User.find_by_username(params[:id])
end

That will work with the standard map.resources routes (as long as the 
param doesn''t contain route separator chars (period, slash, question 
mark).

Swapping spaces and underscores is easy.  Just use #gsub.

--
Josh Susser
http://blog.hasmanythrough.com

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

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