Dynamic URL -> Controller mapping for routes in Rails

Question

I would like to be able to map URLs to Controllers dynamically based on information in my database.

I'm looking to do something functionally equivalent to this (assuming a View model):

map.route '/:view_name',
    :controller => lambda { View.find_by_name(params[:view_name]).controller }

Others have suggested dynamically rebuilding the routes, but this won't work for me as there may be thousands of Views that map to the same Controller

Answer 1

This question is old, but I found it interesting. A fully working solution can be created in Rails 3 using router's capability to route to a Rack endpoint.

Create the following Rack class:

    class MyRouter
      def call(env)
        # Matched from routes, you can access all matched parameters
        view_name= env['action_dispatch.request.path_parameters'][:view_name]

        # Compute these the way you like, possibly using view_name
        controller= 'post' 
        my_action= 'show'

        controller_class= (controller + '_controller').camelize.constantize
        controller_class.action(my_action.to_sym).call(env)
      end
    end

In Routes

    match '/:view_name', :to => MyRouter.new, :via => :get

Hint picked up from http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html#routing-to-rack-applications which says "For the curious, 'posts#index' actually expands out to PostsController.action(:index), which returns a valid Rack application."

A variant tested in Rails 3.2.13.