Router: How to force "/:controller/:action/:params" to match "/controller" (without action)

Question

Router: How to force "/:controller/:action/:params" to match "/controller" (without action)

arantir Mar '13

Created Mar '13	Last Reply Mar '13	Replies 4	Views 1195	Votes 4

arantir 32.5k

Mar '13

I have tried to make route like this: "/forum/:controller/:action/:params". Just to separate forum from other controllers by using different namsepace. But I have noticed that this pattern matches only strings like "/forum/controller/action" or "/forum/controller/action/params", but not "/forum/controller" and "/forum". I thought that missing part are replaced with default ones. I even try to assign defaults by hand.

How to make universally route for "/sothething", "/sothething/controller", "/sothething/controller/action", "/sothething/controller/action/params" altogether? Only thing I want is to add some subpath after domain name and use usual behaviour for match uri after this subpath.

4

Phalcon · Answer 1 · 2013-03-17T11:06:13-07:00

You need at least two routes to achieve the desired behavior:

$router->add("/forum/:controller/:action/:params", array(
    'controller' => 1,
    'action' => 2,
    'params' => 3
));

$router->add("/forum/:controller", array(
    'controller' => 1   
));

arantir · Answer 2 · 2013-03-17T11:51:59-07:00

Nope, the last one route you have posted doesn't match simple "/forum". And that is the proplem. I don't want to make 2 extra routes for each such case.

When the params hadn't matched then it doesn't putted into dispatcher. But why the controller and action do? When I try to make universal pattern than unmatched groups puted as is (1 or 2) and I get something like "action '2' not found".

Phalcon · Answer 3 · 2013-03-17T20:37:04-07:00

I think is not easy create an "universal" route, you can add a third route to match only /forum:

$router->add("/forum", array(
  'controller' => 'index'  
));

You can try to find a regular expression that universally matches the desired pattern but it would look very complex and less flexible:

$router = new Phalcon\Mvc\Router(false);

//Matches /forum and /forum/controller
$router->add('/forum([/]{0,1})([a-zA-Z]+){0,1}', array(
        'controller' => 2
));

$router->handle('/forum/x');

var_dump($router->getMatchedRoute());
var_dump($router->getControllerName());

arantir · Answer 4 · 2013-03-17T21:35:52-07:00

I have found it. Something like:

/forum(?:/)?([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)?(?:/)?([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)?(?:/)?(.+)*

The problem is that, for example, for this:

$router->add('/forum([/]{0,1})([a-zA-Z]+){0,1}', array(
        'controller' => 2
));

for the uri "/forum" the server warns me with this:

Warning: Phalcon\Dispatcher::dispatch(): Invalid arguments supplied for memnstr() 
Warning: Phalcon\Dispatcher::dispatch(): Invalid arguments supplied for camelize()

Phalcon · Answer 5 · 2013-03-18T14:54:25-07:00

Yep, since some patterns are optionally matched the paths aren't filled passing incorrect values to the dispatcher

arantir · Answer 6 · 2013-03-18T18:56:35-07:00

Can I expect that this behavior will be changed? (May I create an issue for this on github?)

I thing the logical and right behavior of router is to use default controller/action/etc. if ones are missed. Because the $router->setDefaults() seems some useless against the problem of the current discussion =)

Anyway, creation of flexible routes is a good possibility.

Phalcon · Answer 7 · 2013-03-18T20:38:04-07:00

This pattern works as expected:

$router->add('/forum/?{controller:[\w\-]+}/?{action:[\w\-]*}{params:/?.*}');

Or:

$router->add('#^/forum/?([\\w\\-]+)/?([\\w\\-]*)(/?.*)$#',  array(
        'controller' => 1,
        'action' => 2,
        'params' => 3,
));

arantir · Answer 8 · 2013-03-18T21:07:42-07:00

Hmmm... I think I understood at last how router deals with regexp =) With '*' instead of '+' in controller group even '/forum' is dispatched correctly. Thanks a lot, that's exactly, exactly what I was looking for! Short, simple and working.