# Customizing Rails requests

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/customizing-rails-requests/65309>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [August 17, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/customizing-rails-requests/65309 "2006-08-17T14:17:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![YAD](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/y/df705f/32.png) [@YAD](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/YAD)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/customizing-rails-requests/65309/1 "2006-08-17T14:17:08Z")

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Where’s the documentation for the Rails ApplicationController class?  
Isn’t that where you start to make your own request-handling code?  
The tutorials all stop at a basic skeleton,  
[http://railsmanual.com/class/ApplicationController](http://railsmanual.com/class/ApplicationController)  
is empty, and  
[http://api.rubyonrails.com/](http://api.rubyonrails.com/)  
doesn’t even list it in the Classes frame.  
The Rails installer spent a lot of time on some kind of documentation,  
but there’s no Rails man page and nothing in myrailsapp/doc.

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**Author:** ![YAD](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/y/df705f/32.png) [@YAD](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/YAD)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 2:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/customizing-rails-requests/65309/2 "2006-08-17T14:23:10Z")

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On 8/17/06, YAD [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> –  
> Yet another Dan

class ApplicationController \< ActionController::Base  
end

[http://api.rubyonrails.com/classes/ActionController/Base.html](http://api.rubyonrails.com/classes/ActionController/Base.html)

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**Author:** ![YAD](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/y/df705f/32.png) [@YAD](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/YAD)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 2:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/customizing-rails-requests/65309/3 "2006-08-17T14:56:16Z")

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Hi,

You’re more likely to find more Rails experts on the Ruby On Rails  
mailing list. Just giving you a heads-up.

Also, the ApplicationController generally holds logic that can happen  
for any request, such as an authentication filter for a protected  
website.

The ActionController::Base documentation will cover creating actions  
which handle the requests. However, you’ll want to look at the  
Router’s documentation if you’re wanting to make some custom routes,  
like [http://host/blog/2006/08/17](http://host/blog/2006/08/17) to map to the blog controller and the  
show action.

Hope this helps,

M.T.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![YAD](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/y/df705f/32.png) [@YAD](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/YAD)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 4:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/customizing-rails-requests/65309/4 "2006-08-17T16:59:31Z")

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Matt T. wrote:

> You’re more likely to find more Rails experts on the Ruby On Rails  
> mailing list. Just giving you a heads-up.

Thanks, I’ll try that.

> The ActionController::Base documentation will cover creating actions  
> which handle the requests.

Good.

> However, you’ll want to look at the  
> Router’s documentation if you’re wanting to make some custom routes,  
> like [http://host/blog/2006/08/17](http://host/blog/2006/08/17) to map to the blog controller and the  
> show action.

I’m not doing that right now, but thanks for the info.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![YAD](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/y/df705f/32.png) [@YAD](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/YAD)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 5:02pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/customizing-rails-requests/65309/5 "2006-08-17T17:02:33Z")

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Jan S. wrote:

> class ApplicationController \< ActionController::Base

Thank you. I also found a small reference  
(and blogs pointing to it) here:

[http://blog.invisible.ch/files/rails-reference-1.1.html#views](http://blog.invisible.ch/files/rails-reference-1.1.html#views)