Im trying to figure out the best way to map simple routes into one url. Application contains of 4 models: Location, Category, Budget, Company. But each model could be mapped to single url like this. For real-world example you can check out http://sortfolio.com/
/chicago <- Location
/3k-5k <- Budget
/bars <- Category
/company-name <- Company
And also they can be mixed into something like this:
/chicago/3k-5k <- Location, Budget
/chicago/bars/3k-5k <- Location, Category, Budget
/bars/3k-5k <- Category, Budget
/foo-bar <- Company
So, basically there is a specific order of parameters:
Location/Category/Budget
There are 2 routes to match all of the url`s:
match('/').to(:controller => 'search', :action => 'index')
match('/:location(/:category(/:budget)))').to(:controller => 'search', :action => 'index')
But in controller it gets a little tricky, because i have to check for items in specific order. Company url goes last because they might override the system paths.
Its working fine, but i have to make a lot of lookups per request because parameters are totally dynamic. Not a big deal, such info could be stored in cache, but im just wondering if there are any other solutions or approaches?
I have just one on my mind: having 1 additional table to store information about path and where it leads. In other words - table denormalization.
+----+----------+------------+
| ID | Url | ObjectType |
+----+----------+------------+
| 1 | chicago | location |
| 2 | bars | category |
| 3 | 3k-5k | budget |
| 4 | foo-bar | company |
+----+----------+------------+
And url parsing process might be packed just in one custom query.
Please advice.