I have been struggling with a Routing Error over the last few hours and I finally got to understand and solve it. Even though it seems that my routing configuration is correct and that the URI I access for testing should be recognized, I get a Routing Error saying that no routes matched. I have an UploadsController and in the routes.rb file I created a named path with something along the lines:

map.request_upload '/indir/:random_id/:filename', :controller => 'uploads', :action => 'request_file'

When I try to visit the URI http://localhost/indir/3454353/.bashrc though, I get a Routing Error. It seemed as though Rails was missing the line, it is as if Rails is not reading it at all. I've went through all the information I could find on the Internet, even started re-reading the Routing chapter from Fernandez' book, but to no avail. Then while trying to solve this problem I requested http://localhost/indir/3454353/bashrc, that is a file without a dot in the name, and bingo, it was recognized.

So what's the result? I am not sure why or how but when wildcard components (or receptors as sometimes called) include a dot, something goes wrong. I think it is not matched with the receptor and thus the route is not recognized. It is an interesting bug (or a feature?).