best way to limit slug length?

[ghost]

I managed to save an item that has an epically long slug, but now I can't perform CRUD on it via a browser due to ...

Request-URI Too Large

WEBrick::HTTPStatus::RequestURITooLarge
WEBrick/1.3.1 (Ruby/1.9.2/2011-07-09) at macbook.local:3000

What would be the best way to limit the slug's length. Why are they called slugs anyway, yuck.

[myabc]

Why are they called slugs anyway, yuck.

@bendwoodward http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_(production)

[norman]

You can just use the regular validations offered by Active Record; i.e. validates_length_of, either on the slug itself, or if the value is coming from a column, then on the column.

[ghost]

@myabc Interesting. I still couldn't find anything about the etymology of the word.

@norman Thanks.

[norman]

The term comes from the typesetting industry. IIRC Moveable Type was the blog engine that first used this term, since they used the typesetting metaphor throughout their software and materials.

[norman]

Oh. Just read @myabc's link. I am completely wrong.

[bhanuprasad143]

There is an option :max_length in friendly_id 3.x, which truncates slug to max_length. I cannot find anything similar in 4.0, but I think it is very useful option.

[norman]

@bhanuprasad143 ActiveSupport provides the limit method for this, so you could do something like:

my_string.parameterize.mb_chars.limit(140).to_s

You can also still use Babosa with FriendlyId if you want; that's the slug library extracted from FriendlyId 3, and has all of the string processing options that FriendlyId 3 had, though most of its functionality was incorporated into Rails 3.

[Sjors]

I just added this method to my model:

def normalize_friendly_id(string)
  super[0..139]
end

[lassebunk]

+1 to @Sjors' solution

[Dieglock]

• another 1 to @Sjors. Was very handy...

[Empact]

@norman I think it was adopted by the newspaper industry based on its use in the typesetting industry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_(typesetting)