Allow + and ? as path_spec wildcards

[ghost]

It'd be nice to have + (at least one) and ? (at most one) as additional wildcard characters for routing. Implementation is in a separate commit.

[bernd]

+1 I think that is useful.

[seancribbs]

My main concern with '+' and '?' is that they are valid characters in a URI. Does this potentially confuse the user?

[ghost]

So is * 😁 ? should be okay as it's the delimiter between request URI and query. But you're right, it can be confusing.

Would it be an option to generally treat string segments as pure strings and use symbols for everything that has a meaning for routing? That would mean using :*, :+ and :"?" as wildcards.

[seancribbs]

@lgierth You have a point about * being a valid URI character.

Also the question becomes, and what point are we reimplementing regular expressions or Rails' router? This deserves pondering.

FWIW you can also implement + and ? in terms of other rules, e.g.

add ["foo", '+'], AtLeastOneResource
add ["bar", '?'], AtMostOneResource

becomes

add ["foo", :one, "*"], AtLeastOneResource
add ["bar", :one],      AtMostOneResource
add ["bar"],            AtMostOneResource

Does the extra brevity and the lack of a mandatory binding help? I feel ambivalent about it without a strong use-case.

[ghost]

To be honest, I didn't even think of simply adding the Resource with two different routes. That's beautiful! So please consider the PR obsolete.

Using :* instead of "*" might still make sense though, as the current route API doesn't clearly communicate which parameters have real meaning to it.

[seancribbs]

@lgierth Thanks, I think turning it into a symbol makes sense. I'll need to insert deprecation notices and the like (to be nice).