Understanding Routes with Routing Navigator

Rick Olson’s released a Routing Navigator plugin to help understand how the Rails routing system works for your application (note: it only supports edge rails, not v1.1.2).

To test it out:

Create a new rails application
$ rails routingtest
Install edge rails into vendor
$ cd routingtest $ rake rails:freeze:edge
Install the routing navigator plugin
$ script/plugin source http://svn.techno-weenie.net/projects/plugins $ script/plugin install routing_navigator
Install the plugin’s CSS and JS file
$ rake update_routing_navigator
Start your application
$ script/server
Browse to /routing_navigator
Modify your routes, rinse and repeat
You’ll also want to add the following to the head of your layout if you want to inspect routes on any of your view pages:
<%= javascript_include_tag :defaults, 'routing_navigator' %> <%= stylesheet_link_tag 'routing_navigator' %>

For the lazy and curious: the routes generated for a base Rails application:

Route	Significant Keys	Requirements	Conditions
/:controller/service.wsdl/	[:controller, :action]	{:action=>”wsdl”}	{}
/:controller/:action/:id/	[:controller, :action, :id]	{}	{}

…and the routes for a simple RESTful application, written using the simply_restful plugin:

Route	Significant Keys	Requirements	Conditions
/:controller/service.wsdl/	[:controller, :action]	{:action=>”wsdl”}	{}
/people.:format/	[:format, :action, :controller]	{:action=>”create”, :controller=>”people”}	{:method=>:post}
/people/	[:action, :controller]	{:action=>”create”, :controller=>”people”}	{:method=>:post}
/people.:format/	[:format, :action, :controller]	{:action=>”index”, :controller=>”people”}	{:method=>:get}
/people/	[:action, :controller]	{:action=>”index”, :controller=>”people”}	{:method=>:get}
/people/new.:format/	[:format, :action, :controller]	{:action=>”new”, :controller=>”people”}	{:method=>:get}
/people/new/	[:action, :controller]	{:action=>”new”, :controller=>”people”}	{:method=>:get}
/people/:id/	[:id, :action, :controller]	{:action=>”destroy”, :controller=>”people”}	{:method=>:delete}
/people/:id/	[:id, :action, :controller]	{:action=>”update”, :controller=>”people”}	{:method=>:put}
/people/:id.:format;edit/	[:id, :format, :action, :controller]	{:action=>”edit”, :controller=>”people”}	{:method=>:get}
/people/:id;edit/	[:id, :action, :controller]	{:action=>”edit”, :controller=>”people”}	{:method=>:get}
/people/:id.:format/	[:id, :format, :action, :controller]	{:action=>”show”, :controller=>”people”}	{:method=>:get}
/people/:id/	[:id, :action, :controller]	{:action=>”show”, :controller=>”people”}	{:method=>:get}
/:controller/:action/:id/	[:controller, :action, :id]	{}	{}