How do you use the FriendlyID Gem in Ruby on Rails?

Using a FriendlyID gem enables a user to access a particular resource based on its name rather than its id. For example, imagine the URL www.123abc.com/resources/1. With the FriendlyID gem, a user may be able to access it as www.123abc.com/resources/my-favourite-resource. This operation is known as canonical cleaning or URL, which results in a “slugthe part of a URL that identifies a page in human-readable keywords.” to route through internet traffic. FriendlyID is used across most Rails projects due to its ability to make web links memorable. However, it does nothing except provide users with the ability to access a particular resource more conveniently.

The following is the series of steps required for installation and usage:

Step 1

Install the gem:

// this command will install it globally
gem install friendly_id

Step 2

Add a slug column to our desired table:

rails g migration AddSlugToUsers slug:uniq

Step 3

Generate the friendly configuration file and new migration:

rails generate friendly_id

Step 4

Run the migration scripts:

rails db:migrate

Step 5

Edit in the app/models/user.rb file like:

class User < ApplicationRecord
  extend FriendlyId
  friendly_id :name, use: :slugged
end

Edit in the app/controllers/users_controller.rb file and replace User.find by User.friendly.find

class UserController < ApplicationController
  def show
    @user = User.friendly.find(params[:id])
  end
end

Now, you create a new user like the following:

User.create! name: "alex williams"

You can then access the user show page using http://localhost:8000/users/alex-williams.