match method in routes.rb

Question

I'm trying to follow this tutorial here but the tutorial seems to use this "match" function.

match '/about',   :to => 'pages#about'

Whenever, I do the same, I get this error from the server:

undefined method `match' for main:Object

How can I edit the routes.rb file such that:

1. it will route from a long file path to a short one (eg. /pages/about to /about)
2. I can have a "about_path" variable that I can link to ( eg: <%= link_to "About", about_path %> )

Answer 1

Are you using Ruby on Rails 3? The match router syntax is for Rails 3 only. For previous versions you can define a named route:

map.about '/about', :controller => 'pages', :action => 'about'

Answer 2

that syntax is for the upcoming Rails3 (actually in beta4 but it's yet adopted for production, if you know what you're doing :P)

you should use this for rails 2.3:

map.about '/about', :controller => 'pages', :action => 'about'

this works if you have an action called 'about' that renders a specific page. otherwise, if 'about' is a simple page that you fetch from a 'show' action, passing an ID or a PERMALINK (eg: you're using permalink_fu plugin), then the right syntax is:

map.about '/about', :controller => 'pages', :action => 'about', :id => 'page_id_or_permalink'

this solution it's not the best: if you change the permalink or delete/re-create the page with a different id, then you must update the routes. by the way it works as you asked.