Sluggi

Sluggi is a simple friendly_id-inspired slugging library for ActiveRecord models. It is faster than friendly_id (see below for benchmarks).

It provides basic slugs, slug history, and the ability to define multiple slug candidates.

Versions

The gemspec includes the activerecord version dependency, so the correct version of sluggi will be installed to match your activerecord version.

sluggi	activerecord
0.5	4.0-5.0
1.0	5.1-5.2
2.0	6.x
3.0	7.x

Install

Add this line to your Gemfile:

gem 'sluggi'

Add a string column named slug to any models you want to slug. You can generate a migration like so:

rails generate migration AddSlugToCats slug:string:uniq:index
rake db:migrate

To track slug history for any model, you must generate a migration to add the slugs table:

rails generate sluggi
rake db:migrate

Usage

Sluggi is Magic Free(tm). Each slugged model must:

• Have a column named slug (see above).
• Include the Sluggi::Slugged module
• Override the slug_value method or the slug_candidates method.

Simple Slugged Model

Specify the slug value by defining #slug_value and #slug_value_changed?.

class Cat < ActiveRecord::Base
  include Sluggi::Slugged

  def slug_value
    name
  end

  def slug_value_changed?
    name_changed?
  end
end

cat = Cat.create(name: 'Tuxedo Stan')
cat.slug
=> 'tuxedo-stan'

cat.to_param
=> 'tuxedo-stan'

cat_path
=> 'cats/tuxedo-stan'

Cat.find_by_slug('tuxedo-stan')
=> cat

Model with Slugged History

To save slug history, include Sluggi::History. You get a slugs association. You can search for any slug in the history using .find_slug!.

You must also implement #saved_change_to_slug_value?.

class Cat < ActiveRecord::Base
  include Sluggi::Slugged
  include Sluggi::History

  def slug_value
    name
  end

  def slug_value_changed?
    name_changed?
  end

  def saved_change_to_slug_value?
    saved_change_to_name?
  end
end

cat = Cat.create(name: 'Tuxedo Stan')
cat.slug
=> 'tuxedo-stan'

cat.name = 'Tuxedo Bob'
cat.save
cat.slug
=> 'tuxedo-bob'

# use .find_slug! to search slug history:

Cat.find_slug!('tuxedo-bob')
=> cat
Cat.find_slug!('tuxedo-stan')
=> cat

# plain finders will not search history:

Cat.find_by_slug('tuxedo-bob')
=> cat

Cat.find_by_slug('tuxedo-stan')
=> RecordNotFound

Model with Slug Candidates

Override #slug_candidates to define cascading candidate values for slugs. This is useful to avoid uniqueness conflicts. Do not override #slug_value - the default implementation in Model will call #slug_candidates and works with or without History.

class Cat < ActiveRecord::Base
  include Sluggi::Slugged

  # The first unused value in the list is used.
  # Each item may be a value or a lambda.
  # Use a lambda to defer expensive unique value calculations.
  def slug_candidates
    [
      name,
      -> { "#{name}-#{Cat.count}" }
    ]
  end

  def slug_value_changed?
    name_changed?
  end
end

cat = Cat.create(name: 'Tuxedo Stan')
cat.slug
=> 'tuxedo-stan'

cat_2 = Cat.create(name: 'Tuxedo Stan')
cat_2.slug
=> 'tuxedo-stan-456'

Performance

Run the benchmark script: ruby bench.rb. This script is based on the benchmark script from friendly_id.

Here are some anecdotal results using ruby 2.5.3:

                                                  SLUGGI      FRIENDLY_ID
1) find (id) - direct ActiveRecord                0.092318    0.093049
2) find (in-table slug)                           0.102773    0.259542
3) find (in-table slug; using finders module)     0.098183    0.108248
4) find (external slug)                           0.670229    0.832791
5) insert (plain AR / no slug)                    0.345077    0.345105
6) insert (in-table-slug)                         0.666451    0.815505
7) insert (in-table-slug; using finders module)   0.668737    0.744433
8) insert (external slug)                         2.480790    2.849761

Notes:

Sluggi is at least 10% faster in every benchmark.

1. Baseline (does not use either gem)
2. 0.44x
3. 0.90x
4. 0.80x
5. Baseline (does not use either gem)
6. 0.82x
7. 0.90x
8. 0.87x

Alternatives

• override ActiveRecord#to_param
• use ActiveRecord.to_param
• friendly_id
• slug
• slugged
• others