Routing is one of the features in Ruby on Rails that are not extensively used by most developers – for a good reason. Routing is necessary in some applications and in most cases, routing is a bit challenging to integrate in Ruby on Rails.

There are still options which are relatively easier compared to routing. But when routing is properly configured, the possibility of integrating the application to other sources especially varied media formats is almost unlimited. It does have its challenges for developers as they try to learn to deal with routing, but the effort is worth it.

Why Routing?

Before moving further, let us take a look on how routing could help developers build applications. Routing is technically a process of connecting data outside and inside. When properly done, the incoming calls from the application could also be replicated and used in the application.

The calls are very simple but when they are implemented in Ruby on Rails through routing, they could mean so much more for the application that the data from the incoming call could be used in the process. This would mean easier coding since you do not have to go through a lot of data manipulation just to make your application work.

Routing Advantages

• One Line for All – Building an application with the help of routing eases your need for additional data in your application. In regular coding, you have to specifically call each data so that they could be properly launched in your application. Routing will enable you to build the application by calling multiple files of any format with only one line. The function map.resources could be used to call different type of files with a single line and launch them in the application.

• Additional Identifiers – Further customization is available for routing. Aside from calling different functions through map.resources, developers could further specify what type of data they would need in their application. Of course this is essential since they need to have the right data. This might be additional work for developers but it will ease the development process since it will still be launched in a single line.

• Better Action Codes – Aside from properly launching your application with additional data, the codes that will help you manipulate data are very easy to remember. Functions such as make, edit and change are only some of the developer friendly functions that could be used in routing.

Routing Implementation Tips

• Keep it Simple – Routing should never be complicated. It defeats the purpose of integrating routing which is to create an application with ease. But this will actually happen especially when you use a lot of map.resources functions. With the function is excessively used, you might end up with a very heavy application.

To address this problem, use the function :only which will trim down a lot of data from the memory and :except which also has the same advantage. These limiting commands should be exercised continuously to ensure that only the needed data will be loaded.

• Trimming Extra Routes – There are scenarios that routing could become a little bit excessive especially in calling data. This usually happens when the developer wanted to specify the needed data to prevent excessive memory use. But this could actually be trimmed especially when the data is already in place or have been previously located in other functions.

A good example for this is when you use map.connect when you want to have a specific file with specific actions. Instead of using the previous function, trim it down by calling map.resources and continue with simplified format and intended action.

Testing

Testing is important in routing like most applications. However, testing is particularly special in routing since there are too many data used on the application with routing. To ease the testing process, Ruby on Rails has functionalities in routing that are specifically made to test the application. Use the following functions to test the specific codes in your routing:

• assert_generates
• assert_recognizes
• assert_routing

These are assertions that will extract the functions (generates), test it for compatibility (recognizes) and tests its availability for routing. With the application properly tested, you can be at ease that the application by routing with Ruby on Rails could have more and varied data for better user experience.