Url_for and routes.rb

Rails
1

I am still struggling with url_for and routing. This is what I do:

<%= url_for :controller => ‘pages’, :action => ‘index’, :id => 8 %>

This one is never used by url_for, although it works fine when

requesting http://myhost/firstniftyurl
map.connect ‘firstniftyurl’, :controller => ‘pages’, :action => ‘index’,
:id => 8

This one is actually picked by url_for, creating

http://myhost/myniftyurl (no :id in the URL)
map.connect ‘myniftyurl/:id’, :controller => ‘pages’, :action =>
‘index’, :id => 8

This creates the expected http://myhost/secondniftyurl/8

map.connect ‘secondniftyurl/:id’, :controller => ‘pages’, :action =>
‘index’

I have three questions:

  1. Why is the first map.connect never used by url_for (why does the
    explicit :id parameter interfere)?
  2. Why is the explicit :id parameter acceptable when there is an :id
    symbol in the route’s name/label?
  3. Why is the :id symbol removed from the resulting URL because of the
    explicit :id parameter?

Cheers,
Jan