= Stringex {}[https://codeclimate.com/github/rsl/stringex] {Build Status}[https://travis-ci.org/rsl/stringex] Some [hopefully] useful extensions to Ruby's String class. It is made up of three libraries: ActsAsUrl, Unidecoder, and StringExtensions. NOTE: Stringex 2.0 [and beyond] drops support for Rails 2. If you need support for that version, use 1.5.1 instead. == ActsAsUrl NOTE: You can now require 'stringex_lite' instead of 'stringex' and skip loading ActsAsUrl functionality if you don't need it. This library is designed to create URI-friendly representations of an attribute, for use in generating urls from your attributes. Basic usage is just calling the method: # Inside your model acts_as_url :title which will populate the url attribute on the object with the converted contents of the title attribute. acts_as_url takes the following options: :url_attribute:: The name of the attribute to use for storing the generated url string. Default is :url :scope:: The name of model attribute to scope unique urls to. There is no default here. :only_when_blank:: If set to true, the url generation will only happen when :url_attribute is blank. Default is false (meaning url generation will happen always). :sync_url:: If set to true, the url field will be updated when changes are made to the attribute it is based on. Default is false. :allow_slash:: If set to true, the url field will not convert slashes. Default is false. :allow_duplicates:: If set to true, unique urls will not be enforced. Default is false. NOTE: This is strongly not recommended if you are routing solely on the generated slug as you will no longer be guaranteed to lookup the expected record based on a duplicate slug. :limit:: If set, will limit length of url generated. Default is nil. :truncate_words:: Used with :limit. If set to false, the url will be truncated to the last whole word before the limit was reached. Default is true. :blacklist:: List of urls that should not be allowed. Default is %w{new} [which avoids confusion on urls like /documents/new]. :blacklist_policy:: Proc or lambda defining new naming behavior when blacklisted urls are encountered. Default converts /documents/new to /documents/new-document. In order to use the generated url attribute, you will probably want to override to_param like so, in your Model: # Inside your model def to_param url # or whatever you set :url_attribute to end Routing called via named routes like foo_path(@foo) will automatically use the url. In your controllers you will need to call Foo.find_by_url(params[:id]) instead of the regular find. Don't look for params[:url] unless you set it explicitly in the routing, to_param will generate params[:id]. Note that if you add acts_as_url to an existing model, the url database column will initially be blank. To set this column for your existing instances, you can use the initialize_urls method. So if your class is Post, just say Post.initialize_urls. Unlike other permalink solutions, ActsAsUrl doesn't rely on Iconv (which is inconsistent across platforms and doesn't provide great transliteration as is) but instead uses a transliteration scheme (see the code for Unidecoder) which produces much better results for Unicode characters. It also mixes in some custom helpers to translate common characters into a more URI-friendly format rather than just dump them completely. Examples: # A simple prelude "simple English".to_url => "simple-english" "it's nothing at all".to_url => "its-nothing-at-all" "rock & roll".to_url => "rock-and-roll" # Let's show off "$12 worth of Ruby power".to_url => "12-dollars-worth-of-ruby-power" "10% off if you act now".to_url => "10-percent-off-if-you-act-now" # You dont EVEN wanna rely on Iconv for this next part "kick it en Français".to_url => "kick-it-en-francais" "rock it Español style".to_url => "rock-it-espanol-style" "tell your readers 你好".to_url => "tell-your-readers-ni-hao" Compare those results with the ones produced on my Intel Mac by a leading permalink plugin: "simple English" # => "simple-english" "it's nothing at all" # => "it-s-nothing-at-all" "rock & roll" # => "rock-roll" "$12 worth of Ruby power" # => "12-worth-of-ruby-power" "10% off if you act now" # => "10-off-if-you-act-now" "kick it en Français" # => "kick-it-en-francais" "rock it Español style" # => "rock-it-espan-ol-style" "tell your readers 你好" # => "tell-your-readers" Not so great, actually. Note: No offense is intended to the author[s] of whatever plugins might produce such results. It's not your faults Iconv sucks. == Unidecoder This library converts Unicode [and accented ASCII] characters to their plain-text ASCII equivalents. This is a port of Perl's Unidecode and provides eminently superior and more reliable results than Iconv. (Seriously, Iconv... A plague on both your houses! [sic]) You probably won't ever need to run Unidecoder by itself. StringExtensions adds String#to_ascii which wraps all of Unidecoder's functionality. For anyone interested, details of the implementation can be read about in the original implementation of Text::Unidecode[http://interglacial.com/~sburke/tpj/as_html/tpj22.html]. Extensive examples can be found in the tests. == StringExtensions A small collection of extensions on Ruby's String class. Please see the documentation for StringExtensions module for more information. There's not much to explain about them really. == Localization With Stringex version 2.0 and higher, you can localize the different conversions in Stringex. Read more here[https://github.com/rsl/stringex/wiki/Localization-of-Stringex-conversions]. If you add a new language, please submit a pull request so we can make it available to other users also. == Ruby on Rails Usage When using Stringex with Ruby on Rails, you automatically get built-in translations for miscellaneous characters, HTML entities, and vulgar fractions. You can see Stringex's standard translations here[https://github.com/rsl/stringex/tree/master/locales]. Currently, built-in translations are available for the following languages: * English (en) * Danish (da) * Swedish (sv) * Dutch (nl) * German (de) * Polish (pl) * Portuguese Brazilian (pt-BR) * Russian (ru) You can easily add your own or customize the built-in translations - read here[https://github.com/rsl/stringex/wiki/Localization-of-Stringex-conversions]. If you add a new language, please submit a pull request so we can make it available to other users also. If you don't want to use the Stringex built-in translations, you can force Stringex to use English (or another language), regardless what is in your +I18n.locale+. In an initializer, e.g. +config/initializers/stringex.rb+: Stringex::Localization.locale = :en == CanCan Usage Note You'll need to add a :find_by => :url to your load_and_authorize_resource. Here's an example: load_and_authorize_resource :class => "Whatever", :message => "Not authorized", :find_by => :url == Thanks & Acknowledgements If it's not obvious, some of the code for ActsAsUrl is based on Rick Olsen's permalink_fu[http://svn.techno-weenie.net/projects/plugins/permalink_fu/] plugin. Unidecoder is a Ruby port of Sean Burke's Text::Unidecode[http://interglacial.com/~sburke/tpj/as_html/tpj22.html] module for Perl. And, finally, the bulk of strip_html_tags[link:classes/Stringex/StringExtensions.html#M000005] in StringExtensions was stolen from Tobias Lütke's Regex in Typo[http://typosphere.org/]. GIANT thanks to the many contributors who have helped make Stringex better and better: http://github.com/rsl/stringex/contributors copyright (c) 2008-2014 Lucky Sneaks, released under the MIT license