This is a simple acts_as extension for Rails apps. It makes use of some nice Rails 2.x features and RESTful routes
in order to provide you with even prettier URLs. By default Rails scaffolds generate URLS such as
http://yoursite.com/members/4 or for nested routed http://yoursite.com/members/4/plans which isn’t really
ideal if you want pretty URLs. Acts as Keyable gives you something this: http://yoursite.com/members/john/plans.
Copy acts_as_keyable.rb into your RAILS_ROOT/lib and add this to the models you want to have pretty URLs, e.g.
require 'acts_as_keyable'
class Member < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_keyable :username
end
Any ActiveRecord class you make keyable must have a key column of type :string. You specify what field to
use to generate the key with a parameter. Another example:
require 'acts_as_keyable'
class Book < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_keyable :title
end
Acts as Keyable will call validates_presence_of and validates_uniqueness_of for the parameter provided.
The key is set when the object is created and not modified thereafter. It may be modified manually, e.g.
Book.find(:first).key = Book.generate_key_for(:some_other_thing)
Keys are shortened to just alphanumeric characters. So a username of “john_doe” becomes a key of “johndoe”.
If there is already a key “johndoe” in the database, then a monotonically increasing number will be appended
to the key, e.g. “johndoe_1” and “johndoe_2”.