# Remapping routes dynamically?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/remapping-routes-dynamically/133328>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [March 30, 2008, 7:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/remapping-routes-dynamically/133328 "2008-03-30T07:47:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Danimal)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2008, 7:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/remapping-routes-dynamically/133328/1 "2008-03-30T07:47:49Z")

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I’m trying to figure out how to merge the utility of namespaces with  
user roles. For example, I have a very simple system of buyers and  
sellers and a user is either part of a buyer account or a seller  
account (not both!). I am trying to figure out if I can define routes  
that are top-level identical but based upon the user’s account type,  
maps to a namespace.

For example, imagine I have a ProductsController class for Buyers and  
a ProductsController class for Sellers. I’m doing this because there  
is enough difference in what a Buyer would do and a Seller would do,  
as opposed to a single class that does some user-role-type logic.

So, I have “app/controllers/buyers/products\_controller.rb” and “app/  
controllers/sellers/products\_controller.rb”. In a normal namespaced-  
defined route, I’d typically have:

map.namespace :buyers do |buyers|  
buyers.resources :products  
end

and

map.namespace :sellers do |sellers|  
sellers.resources :products  
end

So I get routes like: ‘/buyers/products/’ =\> :index action on  
products\_controller in the buyers namespace.

But, what I’d REALLY love is something like:

‘/products’ =\> calls ‘index’ action but on the products\_controller as  
defined by the logged in user’s account type (buyer or seller). And,  
of course, then I’d need some way to handle the case where the user  
tries the URL but hasn’t logged in, perhaps even just a redirect to a  
login controller.

Anyway, does this make sense? Is this even possible? Can someone help  
me with this or with a different way to think about it.

I know I can just do the normal namespacing, but the URLs would be so  
much neater, in my case, if I could ditch the prefix in the URLs.

TIA!

-Danimal

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Danimal)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2008, 8:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/remapping-routes-dynamically/133328/2 "2008-03-30T20:34:59Z")

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The more I thought about this, the more trouble it’ll cause. Not to  
mention that the routes mapping is loaded at server start, not per  
request, so I can’t do any dynamic hooks there. The other option I  
thought of was to have a generic “catch-all” route and work it like a  
dispatcher, but then I’d be circumventing all of routing and building  
my own route parser. Ug!

What I think will really work is to put a before\_filter on controllers  
that need to be handled by different roles and keep the distinctions  
in the controller. So, for example, have a single ProductsController  
but based on the before\_filter set some things or call different  
methods or whatever.

-Danimal

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Danimal)\
**Post date:** [March 31, 2008, 3:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/remapping-routes-dynamically/133328/3 "2008-03-31T15:44:49Z")

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I think you were on the right track initially. Use namespaces for  
your buyers and sellers as you were planning. However, leave your  
login controller (session from restful\_authentication or whatever) out  
in the un-namespaced area. Once the user has been authenticated you  
can send them to their appropriate buyer or seller ‘home page’ and all  
the rest should remain within than namspace easily enough (either  
because you use xxx\_path named routes or because you explicitly use  
the namespaced xxx\_url).