Rails route to username instead of id

Question

I am trying to change the rails routes from /users/1 to /username. I currently set this up so it works for the actions of showing and editing. The actual issue is that when

Answer 1

You can use friendly_id gem: https://github.com/norman/friendly_id

Answer 2

In your user model:

def to_param
  username
end

The to_param method on ActiveRecord objects uses, by default, just the ID of the object. By putting this code in your model, you're overwriting the ActiveRecord default, so when you link to a User, it will use the username for the parameter instead of id.

Answer 3

You don't have to override to_param if you don't want to, you can just specify in the form tag like this:

<%= form_for @user, :url => user_path(:id => @user.username) do |f|%>

Answer 4

In the User model override the to_param method to return what you want used in the URL.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  def to_param
    username
  end
end

In your controller instead of using User.find(params[:id]) you now need to use User.find_by_username(params[:id])