Redirects and Wildcard Routes

If you want to provide a URL out of convenience for your user but map it directly to another one you're already using. Use a redirect:

# config/routes.rb
TestApp::Application.routes.draw do
  get 'courses/:course_name' => redirect('/courses/%{course_name}/lessons'), :as => "course"
end

Well, that got interesting fast. The basic principle here is to just use the #redirect method to send one route to another route. If your route is quite simple, it's a really straightforward method. But if you want to also send the original parameters, you need to do a bit of gymnastics by capturing the parameter inside %{here}. Note the single quotes around everything.

In the example above, we've also renamed the route for convenience by using an alias with the :as parameter. This lets us use that name in methods like the #_path helpers. Again, test out your $ rake routes with questions.