Rails - Feb 2014 - Best practise for setting default URL parameters in the controller

I've been trying to set default URL parameters in the controller, which 
will also be used within the view. This is what I've got:

@params = params

defaults = { :date_from => '21/1/21014', :date_to =>
'21/2/21014',
:data=>"Expense" }
if @params.any?
  @params = defaults.merge(@params)
else
  @params = defaults
end

.. seems messy, and doesn't work :( When params are present it still uses 
the default params. Not sure where it's going wrong and search on google 
yields many varieties. I know using default values in methods is something 
that I will repeat again so I was wondering what the best practise is for 
handling this. Thanks

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