How do I rewrite URL's based on title?

Question

This is a fairly open-ended question, and I\'m just looking for the best possible avenue.

Users can post links with titles. And I want my URL\'s for SEO purposes to

Answer 1

I used this in an old Rails 2.x app. There may be a better approach to scrubbing the title...

(goes in your model)

def to_param
  seo_uri
end

def seo_uri
  "#{self.id}-#{self.title.gsub(/[^a-z0-9]+/i, '-').gsub(/-{2}/, '-').gsub(/-$/, '')}"
end

Hope this helps!

UPDATE

Comments on this answer indicated there is a new method available for Rails 3 users: #parameterize. The Rails API document for this method shows how it should be used (cut-n-paste):

class Person
  def to_param
    "#{id}-#{name.parameterize}"
  end
end

@person = Person.find(1)
# => #

<%= link_to(@person.name, person_path %>
# => Donald E. Knuth