title: Inheriting and routing a custom action from ApplicationController in Rails
body: <p>I am using Rails 2.3.2 but I'm sure this applies to newer versions as well. I would like to define a custom action in ApplicationController. However, I don't want to add a custom route to every single controller subclass which uses this action. Is there an easy way to do this? </p>
  
  <p>My first inclination was to just route directly to the ApplicationController, since the method does not need to be overridden by any subclasses. But I don't think Rails lets you route to the ApplicationController anymore.</p>
  
  <p>Somebody else suggested something like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>map.connect ":controller/:action", :controller =&gt; my_regex, :action =&gt; my_regex
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But I'm wondering if this has the potential of conflicting with or overriding other routes? Or if there's generally a better way? Thanks!</p>