Best way to encode URLs?

Question

Hi,

I am currently developing a CMS and want to encode special chars in the URL in a nice way. I don't want to use Rack::Utils.escape.

Is there already a cool gem available?

Best regards

Answer 1

I'm not familiar with Ruby - can you use Javascript encodeURI() or encodeComponentURI() methods?

Answer 2

Ruby's CGI library should do what you need:

url_encoded_string = CGI::escape("'Stop!' said Fred")
# => "%27Stop%21%27+said+Fred"

See http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/CGI.html

Answer 3

Look at the stringex gem here, it can be used even without rails, but contains some stuff to make it easier to use(with rails).

Answer 4

Well, I normally use a handy custom-made method called String.to_slug. I hope you find it useful.

Call this /lib/to_slug.rb and include it in one initializer, or include it only on the model that generates the urls.

String.class_eval do

  #converts accented letters into ascii equivalents (eg. ñ becomes n)
  def normalize
    #this version is in the forums but didn't work for me
    #chars.normalize(:kd).gsub!(/[^\x00-\x7F]/n,'').to_s
    mb_chars.normalize(:d).gsub(/[^\x00-\x7F]/n,'').to_s
  end

  #returns an array of strings containing the words on a string
  def words
    gsub(/\W/, ' ').split
  end

  #convert into a nice url-ish string
  def to_slug(separator='-')
    strip.downcase.normalize.words.join(separator)
  end

end