How to Redirect Incoming HTTP Requests Using Rails Router

1 min read

The redirect helper method lets you redirect any path to another path or URL. For example, the following route redirects all the incoming requests on /images to /photos.

get "/images", to: redirect("/photos")

# OR

get "/images" => redirect("/photos")

If the older route contained dynamic segments, you can reuse them with interpolation, as follows:

get "/images/:tag", to: redirect("/photos/%{tag}")

By default, the Rails router uses HTTP status 301 Moved Permanently for redirecting.

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The HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) 301 Moved Permanently redirect status response code indicates that the requested resource has been definitively moved to the URL given by the Location headers. A browser redirects to the new URL and search engines update their links to the resource. - MDN

To change the response status code, pass the :status option.

get "/images/:tag", to: redirect("/photos/%{tag}"), status: 302

Note: Rails will use the default host if you don't provide one. To redirect to an external URL, provide the complete URL, including the host name.

get "/blog", to: redirect("https://www.writesoftwarewell.com/")

That's a wrap. I hope you found this article helpful and you learned something new.

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