Method for permalink creation in ruby, based on drupal code
def create_permalink(string, separator = '-', max_size = 127) # words to ignore, usually the same words ignored by search engines ignore_words = ['a', 'an', 'the'] ignore_re = String.new # building ignore regexp ignore_words.each{ |word| ignore_re << word + '\b|\b' } ignore_re = '\b' + ignore_re + '\b' # replace apostrophes with separator permalink = string.gsub("'", separator) # delete ignore words permalink.gsub!(ignore_re, '') # all down permalink.downcase! # preserve alphanumerics, everything else becomes a separator permalink.gsub!(/[^a-z0-9]+/, separator) # enforce the maximum component length and return it permalink = permalink.to(max_size) # trim any leading or trailing separators return permalink.gsub(/^\\#{separator}+|\\#{separator}+$/, '') end
It takes care of non-english characters and you can use it in any string, like: "Hello World".to_permalink #=> "hello-world".
You can add the ignored words and limit if you want, easily.