Yesterday I posted about implementing dynamic actions (functions) in a controller. This is interesting because one can achieve clean urls, instead of passing the names of the dynamic pages in args or vars. In a system with a cms this has the benefit of user defined pages being indistinguishable from extant "hard-coded" actions (if any).
However, given the static nature of controllers (they are compiled with web2py) this cannot be achieved with closures or metaprogramming. The solution is to use routes to hide a dispatching action. It maybe possible to add to the controller namespace at runtime (but it is beyond my knowledge to explore this). This made me think that controllers might allow for the implementation (override?) a single dynamic action that would serve as a catchall for calls to non defined actions. I wonder if there as been any debate on this sort of built-in default action? This would supply a way to dealt with all calls that have no defined action per controller (including errors) without having to use routes. A small idea that perhaps does not bring enough benefits to be argued for. What do you think? Miguel
