= Stringex {<img src="https://codeclimate.com/github/rsl/stringex.png" />}[https://codeclimate.com/github/rsl/stringex] {<img src="https://travis-ci.org/rsl/stringex.png?branch=master" alt="Build Status" />}[https://travis-ci.org/rsl/stringex]

Some [hopefully] useful extensions to Ruby's String class. It is made up of three libraries: ActsAsUrl, Unidecoder, and StringExtensions.

<em>NOTE: Stringex 2.0 [and beyond] drops support for Rails 2. If you need support for that version, use 1.5.1 instead.</em>

== ActsAsUrl

<em>NOTE: You can now require 'stringex_lite' instead of 'stringex' and skip loading ActsAsUrl functionality if you don't need it.</em>

This library is designed to create URI-friendly representations of an attribute, for use in generating urls from your attributes. Basic usage is just calling the method:

  # Inside your model
  acts_as_url :title

which will populate the <tt>url</tt> attribute on the object with the converted contents of the <tt>title</tt> attribute.
<tt>acts_as_url</tt> takes the following options:

<tt>:url_attribute</tt>:: The name of the attribute to use for storing the generated url string.
                          Default is <tt>:url</tt>
<tt>:scope</tt>:: The name of model attribute to scope unique urls to. There is no default here.
<tt>:only_when_blank</tt>:: If set to true, the url generation will only happen when <tt>:url_attribute</tt> is
                            blank. Default is false (meaning url generation will happen always).
<tt>:sync_url</tt>:: If set to true, the url field will be updated when changes are made to the
                     attribute it is based on. Default is false.
<tt>:allow_slash</tt>:: If set to true, the url field will not convert slashes. Default is false.
<tt>:allow_duplicates</tt>:: If set to true, unique urls will not be enforced.
                             Default is false. <em>NOTE: This is strongly not recommended
                             if you are routing solely on the generated slug as you will no longer
                             be guaranteed to lookup the expected record based on a duplicate slug.</em>
<tt>:limit</tt>:: If set, will limit length of url generated. Default is nil.
<tt>:truncate_words</tt>:: Used with :limit. If set to false, the url will be truncated to the last
                           whole word before the limit was reached. Default is true.
<tt>:blacklist</tt>:: List of urls that should not be allowed. Default is <tt>%w{new}</tt> [which avoids confusion
                      on urls like <tt>/documents/new</tt>].
<tt>:blacklist_policy</tt>:: Proc or lambda defining new naming behavior when blacklisted urls are encountered.
                             Default converts <tt>/documents/new</tt> to </tt>/documents/new-document</tt>.


In order to use the generated url attribute, you will probably want to override <tt>to_param</tt> like so, in your Model:

  # Inside your model
  def to_param
    url # or whatever you set :url_attribute to
  end

Routing called via named routes like <tt>foo_path(@foo)</tt> will automatically use the url. In your controllers you will need to call <tt>Foo.find_by_url(params[:id])</tt> instead of the regular find. Don't look for <tt>params[:url]</tt> unless you set it explicitly in the routing, <tt>to_param</tt> will generate <tt>params[:id]</tt>.

Note that if you add <tt>acts_as_url</tt> to an existing model, the <tt>url</tt> database column will initially be blank. To set this column for your existing instances, you can use the <tt>initialize_urls</tt> method. So if your class is <tt>Post</tt>, just say <tt>Post.initialize_urls</tt>.

Unlike other permalink solutions, ActsAsUrl doesn't rely on Iconv (which is inconsistent across platforms and doesn't provide great transliteration as is) but instead uses a transliteration scheme (see the code for Unidecoder) which produces much better results for Unicode characters. It also mixes in some custom helpers to translate common characters into a more URI-friendly format rather than just dump them completely. Examples:

   # A simple prelude
   "simple English".to_url => "simple-english"
   "it's nothing at all".to_url => "its-nothing-at-all"
   "rock & roll".to_url => "rock-and-roll"

   # Let's show off
   "$12 worth of Ruby power".to_url => "12-dollars-worth-of-ruby-power"
   "10% off if you act now".to_url => "10-percent-off-if-you-act-now"

   # You dont EVEN wanna rely on Iconv for this next part
   "kick it en Français".to_url => "kick-it-en-francais"
   "rock it Español style".to_url => "rock-it-espanol-style"
   "tell your readers 你好".to_url => "tell-your-readers-ni-hao"

Compare those results with the ones produced on my Intel Mac by a leading permalink plugin:

  "simple English" # => "simple-english"
  "it's nothing at all" # => "it-s-nothing-at-all"
  "rock & roll" # => "rock-roll"

  "$12 worth of Ruby power" # => "12-worth-of-ruby-power"
  "10% off if you act now" # => "10-off-if-you-act-now"

  "kick it en Français" # => "kick-it-en-francais"
  "rock it Español style" # => "rock-it-espan-ol-style"
  "tell your readers 你好" # => "tell-your-readers"

Not so great, actually.

Note: No offense is intended to the author[s] of whatever plugins might produce such results. It's not your faults Iconv sucks.

== Unidecoder

This library converts Unicode [and accented ASCII] characters to their plain-text ASCII equivalents. This is a port of Perl's Unidecode and provides eminently superior and more reliable results than Iconv. (Seriously, Iconv... A plague on both your houses! [sic])

You probably won't ever need to run Unidecoder by itself. StringExtensions adds String#to_ascii which wraps all of Unidecoder's functionality. For anyone interested, details of the implementation can be read about in the original implementation of Text::Unidecode[http://interglacial.com/~sburke/tpj/as_html/tpj22.html]. Extensive examples can be found in the tests.

== StringExtensions

A small collection of extensions on Ruby's String class. Please see the documentation for StringExtensions module for more information. There's not much to explain about them really.

== Localization

With Stringex version 2.0 and higher, you can localize the different conversions in Stringex. Read more here[https://github.com/rsl/stringex/wiki/Localization-of-Stringex-conversions]. If you add a new language, please submit a pull request so we can make it available to other users also.

== Ruby on Rails Usage

When using Stringex with Ruby on Rails, you automatically get built-in translations for miscellaneous characters, HTML entities, and vulgar fractions. You can see Stringex's standard translations here[https://github.com/rsl/stringex/tree/master/locales].

Currently, built-in translations are available for the following languages:

  * English (en)
  * Danish (da)
  * Swedish (sv)
  * Dutch (nl)
  * German (de)
  * Polish (pl)
  * Portuguese Brazilian (pt-BR)
  * Russian (ru)

You can easily add your own or customize the built-in translations - read here[https://github.com/rsl/stringex/wiki/Localization-of-Stringex-conversions]. If you add a new language, please submit a pull request so we can make it available to other users also.

If you don't want to use the Stringex built-in translations, you can force Stringex to use English (or another language), regardless what is in your +I18n.locale+. In an initializer, e.g. +config/initializers/stringex.rb+:

  Stringex::Localization.locale = :en

== CanCan Usage Note

You'll need to add a <tt>:find_by => :url</tt> to your <tt>load_and_authorize_resource</tt>.  Here's an example:

  load_and_authorize_resource :class => "Whatever", :message => "Not authorized", :find_by => :url

== Thanks & Acknowledgements

If it's not obvious, some of the code for ActsAsUrl is based on Rick Olsen's permalink_fu[http://svn.techno-weenie.net/projects/plugins/permalink_fu/] plugin. Unidecoder is a Ruby port of Sean Burke's Text::Unidecode[http://interglacial.com/~sburke/tpj/as_html/tpj22.html] module for Perl. And, finally, the bulk of strip_html_tags[link:classes/Stringex/StringExtensions.html#M000005] in StringExtensions was stolen from Tobias Lütke's Regex in Typo[http://typosphere.org/].

GIANT thanks to the many contributors who have helped make Stringex better and better: http://github.com/rsl/stringex/contributors

copyright (c) 2008-2014 Lucky Sneaks, released under the MIT license
