Friendly_id: slug_candidates not naming slug properly

Question

I have the following in my model:

class Dispenser < ActiveRecord::Base

  extend FriendlyId

  friendly_id :slug_candidates, use: :slugged

  def slug_candidates
    [
      :full_name,
      [:full_name, :id]
    ]
  end

end

This is generating slugs like:

=> 'bob-barker-bob-barker-15'

Really it should be bob-barker or bob-barker-15, but not both.

https://github.com/norman/friendly_id

Answer 1

The functionality you're describing is in version 5

See: https://github.com/norman/friendly_id#what-changed-in-version-50

What you've written is essentially just returning an array of symbols which is running through the parameterize method after it's cast to a string ...

2.0.0p247 :002 > ['name',['name',15]].to_s.parameterize # this is what friendly_id does in the background
 => "name-name-15"

Hope that helps

Answer 2

FriendlyId author here. As mentioned earlier, you need FriendlyId 5 for this, it won't work with 4.0.

Also note that you can not use the id field as a part of the slug, because the slug is generated before the record is created.

If you are willing to have the id field in the slug, then there are easier solutions available other than FriendlyId, such as overriding the to_param method as described here.

Answer 3

On slug conflicts, FriendlyID by default uses the UUID (e.g. something like 2bc08962-b3dd-4f29-b2e6-244710c86106) and won't accept id. So something like this won't work:

def slug_candidates
  [
    :full_name,
    [:full_name, :id]
  ]
end

But you can provide a custom number after the :full_name instead of :id.

I did something like this:

def slug_candidates
  [
    :full_name,
    [:full_name, "#{User.where(
        first_name: first_name, last_name: last_name
      ).count + 1}"]
  ]
end

So I will get slugs like john-doe, john-doe-2, john-doe-3, etc.

Answer 4

[:full_name, :id] - you can do this only onUpdate (when :id already set) When you are creating a new record in your DB table this will not work!

For you purpose you should use some like this

def slug_candidates
[
  :name,
  [:name, 2],
  [:name, 3],
  [:name, 4],
  [:name, 5],
  [:name, 6],
  [:name, 7],
]

end

Or shortly

def slug_candidates
  [:name] + Array.new(6) {|index| [:name, index+2]}
end

It's simple way to solve this problem without extra SQL query