How Do You Encrypt URLs?

rubyonrails-talk
#1

Couldn't you f.ex add an URL field in the DB to which you assign some
random string like xWa2IUhkjwq23 when you create the page, and then
you could use:

@page = Page.find_by_url(params[:url])

in your Page model you could also add the following:

def to_param
  url
end

That returns the url-parameter we added instead of the ID in cases
where the ID would normally be returned. Remember that you have to use
find_by_url when doing this!

You could also use the following

# Returns somethink like this
# 21-asdKjiWAOdl
# which would be rather easy to guess if the user
# isn't totally dumb
def to_param
  "#{id}-#{url}"
end

Rails will extract the ID when it needs it with some magic, but the
addresses are going to be a lot easier to guess! In this case you
could just use the normal Page.find()

Your routes could look something like this:

map.connect ":controller/:action:/:url"

Hope this helps.

S

#2

Here is a change to my previous post:

If you want URLs like this:

domain.com/show/XyAdcZdF

you would have to make your routes look more like this:

map.connect ':action:/:url', :controller => 'the_controller'