Howto change view format based on domain name

Question

Hi all,

I wanted to know if there are any way to change the view format for based on domain name the same rails app.

For example :

• www.domain.com => respond_to format.html
• api.domain.com => respond_to format.xml or format.json

Thanks all for your help

Answer 1

Yes, use a before_filter in your controller and set the response.format according to the value of request.host.

class Controller < ActionController::Base

  before_filter :adapt_response_format

  protected

    def adapt_response_format
      response.format = case request.host
        when "xml.foo.com" then :xml
        else                    :html
    end

end

Answer 2

Here is an alternative approach to what I am guessing is your problem.

Why not ask your clients to set the Accept header to application/xml or application/json depending on what format they want? You can serve html by default to support web browsers.

This way you don't need to have two different hosts.