DZone Snippets: permalink code

Make your model play nice with SEO

jerome () — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:13:08 GMT



## config/initializers/string_extensions.rb



require 'unicode'



class String

  def to_slug

    str = Unicode.normalize_KD(self).gsub(/[^\x00-\x7F]/n,'')

    str = str.gsub(/\W+/, '-').gsub(/^-+/,'').gsub(/-+$/,'').downcase

  end



  def numeric?

    if self =~ /^\d+$/

      self.to_i

    elsif self =~ /^\d+([,\.]\d+)?$/

      self.tr(',','.').to_f

    else

      false

    end

  end

end





## app/models/article.rb



# string :title

# text   :body

# string :permalink

class Article < ActiveRecord::Base

  before_save :set_permalink



  # article_path(@article)

  # >> /article/5

  # article_path(@article.permalink)

  # /article/pink-ferret

  def self.find(*args)

    if args.first.is_a?(String) and !args.first.numeric?

      find_by_permalink(args.shift,*args) or raise ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound

    else

      super

    end

  end



  # article_path(@article)

  # >> /article/5-pink-ferret

  def to_param

    "#{id}-#{permalink}"

  end



  private

  def set_permalink

    self.permalink = title.to_slug

  end

end

Permalink from post title

carlo984 (Carlo) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 11:04:26 GMT

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

Nice post slug

sligowaths (Tiago Serafim) — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:09:27 GMT

This code replaces accents to normal chars(e.g "Ã¡" => "a"), everything that isnÂ´t in "a-zA-Z0-9" to "", multiples spaces to one space, and one space to "-".

This is useful to make URLs from titles, like Netscape.com does...

"A new report recommends only work 4 -6 hrs a day" => "A-new-report-recommends-only-work-4-6-hrs-a-day"

"Video: \"Popular Mechanics\" editor debunks 9/11 myths" => "Video-Popular-Mechanics-editor-debunks-911-myths"

etc..
The code is 95% based on http://textsnippets.com/posts/show/451



def self.nice_slug(str)

		

		accents = { 

		  ['Ã¡','Ã ','Ã¢','Ã¤','Ã£'] => 'a',

		  ['Ãƒ','Ã„','Ã‚','Ã€','Ã?'] => 'A',

		  ['Ã©','Ã¨','Ãª','Ã«'] => 'e',

		  ['Ã‹','Ã‰','Ãˆ','ÃŠ'] => 'E',

		  ['Ã','Ã¬','Ã®','Ã¯'] => 'i',

		  ['Ã?','ÃŽ','ÃŒ','Ã?'] => 'I',

		  ['Ã³','Ã²','Ã´','Ã¶','Ãµ'] => 'o',

		  ['Ã•','Ã–','Ã”','Ã’','Ã“'] => 'O',

		  ['Ãº','Ã¹','Ã»','Ã¼'] => 'u',

		  ['Ãš','Ã›','Ã™','Ãœ'] => 'U',

		  ['Ã§'] => 'c', ['Ã‡'] => 'C',

		  ['Ã±'] => 'n', ['Ã‘'] => 'N'

		  }

		accents.each do |ac,rep|

		  ac.each do |s|

			str = str.gsub(s, rep)

		  end

		end

		str = str.gsub(/[^a-zA-Z0-9 ]/,"")

		

		str = str.gsub(/[ ]+/," ")

		



		str = str.gsub(/ /,"-")

		

		#str = str.downcase



	end