- The Root Path 2:39
- Root Path 2 objectives
- Getting HTML from a Template 2:19
- Loading ERB Templates 1 objective
- Loading Text Files 2:43
- URL Parameters 4:19
- URL Parameters 1 objective
- ERB Tags 7:15
- ERB Tags 1 objective
- Embedding Page Data with ERB 4:22
- Embedding Instance Variables 3 objectives
- ERB 5 questions
Preview
Video Player
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URL Parameters
4:19We want to be able to type in "/Nick Pettit" or "/Robots" or any other page we've created a text file for, and have it load. But there's no way we can create separate Sinatra routes for all those. Not only would our app code be really long, we can't possibly anticipate every page that users might want to create. So instead, we're going to create a single route that will match any page users might attempt to visit. And we'll do it using a "URL parameter".
We're set up to load page
content from text files.
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Next we need to display that
content in the browser.
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We want people to be able
to type in a path and
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see the contents of a text file that
was loaded in from the pages directory.
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Let's add directions to the welcome
paid so that people know to try this,
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we'll let it welcomed the RB
in the views directory and
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will add in an age female paragraph
with our directions Visit
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/PageName, To view a page.
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Save that, and now if we run the app.
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And reload the route path,
we'll see those directions.
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But if we try that now by clicking in
the address bar and typing in Nick Pettit.
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Remember that's the name of
the sample text file we created.
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We see Sinatra doesn't know that steady.
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By the way notice that the space in
the URL gets replaced with a %20.
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Space characters aren't valid in a URL so
the browser encodes them.
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Sinatra still gets the space character
in the browser requests though
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we want to be able to type in slash
Nick Pettit or slash robots or
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any other page we've created the text
file for and have it load, but
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there's no way we can create
separate Sinatra outs for all those.
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Not only would our app
code be really long,
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we can't possibly anticipate every
page that users might want to create.
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So instead, we're going to create
a single route that will match
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any page users might attempt to visit.
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And we'll do it using a URL parameter.
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A URL parameter allows users to
substitute any string they want for
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part of the request path.
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That string will then be accessible
within your Sinatra route.
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First let's set up a route
with a URL parameter.
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We want this to respond
to HTTP get requests.
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So we'll use the get
method as we did before.
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So we'll go here into
wiki.rb then copy get method.
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Then we need a path to match.
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Paths always start with the slash.
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So we'll set that up in a string.
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The next segment of the path
will be our URL parameter.
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Parameters are marked with a colon
followed by a parameter name.
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We want this parameter to be the title
of the page we want to view.
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So, we'll call it title, :title.
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And as always the route needs a block to
call when it gets a matching request.
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Let's set the route up so that we can
look at the parameter we're getting
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from the URL parameters gets stored along
with other parameters in the params hash.
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You can access params within
any Sinatra route block.
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The keys of the params hash are the names
of the parameters you can use either
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a symbol or a string whichever you prefer
both will access the same parameter.
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So to access the title parameter we
give it the symbol, title as a key.
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Our title URL parameter is now
the return value of the block.
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So that's what will be returned
in the response to the browser.
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Let's save our work, restart our app.
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And then reload the preview for
the /NickPettit URL.
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We can see that it takes
the string from the request path
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along with the encoded space character.
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Puts it into the title URL parameter and
then prints that parameter out.
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Now that we've got a page title, we can
pass it to the page content method to load
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text files from the pages directly.
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So, instead of just returning the title
parameter, we'll pass it to page content
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as an argument, page_content
(params(:title): will be our new argument.
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And since that's the last
expression on the block,
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the page text will be
the new return value.
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Let's restart the app again.
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And reload our preview page.
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Instead of the Nick Pettit title
parameter we'll see the content
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of the text from the page's directory.
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This page is a little bare bones though.
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We're just dumping raw text in
the response instead of HTML.
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We're not displaying
the page title anywhere.
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So, up next, we'll show you how to
use ZR beat to embed the title and
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text into an HTML template.
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