Rails: URL helper to combine URL params?

Question

How would I either create a helper or use the built-in link_to helper to combine URL params?

For instance, say I'm on a page with the URL parameter of status:

http://example.com/items?status=new

I have another link for carriers that I'd basically want to append to that, like so:

http://example.com/items?status=new&carrier=fedex

So basically the helper would detect if there were any params in the URL and then append the param to that.

Answer 1

Just pass it as a hash, i.e. items_url(:status => :new, :carrier => :fedex)

Answer 2

You want to use the request object. Here is a good writeup on it:Request Object in Rails