Grails Goodness: Grouping URL Mappings

We can group URL mappings defined in grails-app/conf/UrlMappings.groovy using the group() method defined for the URL mapping DSL. The first argument is the first part of the URL followed by a closure in which we define mappings like we are used to.

Suppose we have defined the following two mappings in our UrlMappings.groovy file, both starting with /admin:

// File: grails-app/conf/UrlMappings.groovy
class UrlMappings {

    static mappings = {
        // Mappings starting both with /admin:
        "/admin/report/$action?/$id?(.${format})?"(controller: 'report')
        "/admin/users/$action?/$id?(.${format})?"(controller: 'userAdmin')

        "/"(view:"/index")
        "500"(view:'/error')
    }
}

We can rewrite this and use the group() method to get the following definition:

// File: grails-app/conf/UrlMappings.groovy
class UrlMappings {

    static mappings = {
        // Using grouping for mappings starting with /admin:
        group("/admin") {
            "/report/$action?/$id?(.${format})?"(controller: 'report')
            "/users/$action?/$id?(.${format})?"(controller: 'userAdmin')
        }

        "/"(view:"/index")
        "500"(view:'/error')
    }
}

When we use the createLink and link tags the group is taken into account. For example when we use <g:createLink controller="userAdmin"/> we get the following URL if the application name is sample: /sample/admin/users.

Code written with Grails 2.3.