Routing¶

Routes Configuration¶

Routes in an application are configured in app/Config/routes.php. This file is included by the Dispatcher when handling routes and allows you to define application specific routes you want used. Routes declared in this file are processed top to bottom when incoming requests are matched. This means that the order you place routes can affect how routes are parsed. It’s generally a good idea to place most frequently visited routes at the top of the routes file if possible. This will save having to check a number of routes that won’t match on each request.

Routes are parsed and matched, in the order they are connected in. If you define two similar routes, the first defined route will have higher priority over the one defined latter. After connecting routes you can manipulate the order of routes using Router::promote().

CakePHP also comes with a few default routes to get you started. These can be disabled later on once you are sure you don’t need them. See Disabling the Default Routes on how to disable the default routing.

Default Routing¶

Before you learn about configuring your own routes, you should know that CakePHP comes configured with a default set of routes. CakePHP’s default routing will get you pretty far in any application. You can access an action directly via the URL by putting its name in the request. You can also pass parameters to your controller actions using the URL.

// URL pattern default routes:
http://example.com/controller/action/param1/param2/param3

The URL /posts/view maps to the view() action of the PostsController, and /products/view_clearance maps to the view_clearance() action of the ProductsController. If no action is specified in the URL, the index() method is assumed.

The default routing setup also allows you to pass parameters to your actions using the URL. A request for /posts/view/25 would be equivalent to calling view(25) on the PostsController, for example. The default routing also provides routes for plugins, and prefix routes should you choose to use those features.

The built-in routes live in Cake/Config/routes.php. You can disable the default routing by removing them from your application’s routes.php file.

Connecting Routes¶

Defining your own routes allows you to define how your application will respond to a given URL. Define your own routes in the app/Config/routes.php file using the Router::connect() method.

The connect() method takes up to three parameters: the URL you wish to match, the default values for your route elements, and regular expression rules to help the router match elements in the URL.

The basic format for a route definition is:

Router::connect(
    'URL',
    array('default' => 'defaultValue'),
    array('option' => 'matchingRegex')
);

The first parameter is used to tell the router what sort of URL you’re trying to control. The URL is a normal slash delimited string, but can also contain a wildcard (*) or Route Elements. Using a wildcard tells the router that you are willing to accept any additional arguments supplied. Routes without a * only match the exact template pattern supplied.

Once you’ve specified a URL, you use the last two parameters of connect() to tell CakePHP what to do with a request once it has been matched. The second parameter is an associative array. The keys of the array should be named after the route elements in the URL, or the default elements: :controller, :action, and :plugin. The values in the array are the default values for those keys. Let’s look at some basic examples before we start using the third parameter of connect():

Router::connect(
    '/pages/*',
    array('controller' => 'pages', 'action' => 'display')
);

This route is found in the routes.php file distributed with CakePHP. This route matches any URL starting with /pages/ and hands it to the display() action of the PagesController(); The request /pages/products would be mapped to PagesController->display('products').

In addition to the greedy star /* there is also the /** trailing star syntax. Using a trailing double star, will capture the remainder of a URL as a single passed argument. This is useful when you want to use an argument that included a / in it:

Router::connect(
    '/pages/**',
    array('controller' => 'pages', 'action' => 'show')
);

The incoming URL of /pages/the-example-/-and-proof would result in a single passed argument of the-example-/-and-proof.

You can use the second parameter of Router::connect() to provide any routing parameters that are composed of the default values of the route:

Router::connect(
    '/government',
    array('controller' => 'pages', 'action' => 'display', 5)
);

This example shows how you can use the second parameter of connect() to define default parameters. If you built a site that features products for different categories of customers, you might consider creating a route. This allows you link to /government rather than /pages/display/5.

Another common use for the Router is to define an “alias” for a controller. Let’s say that instead of accessing our regular URL at /users/some_action/5, we’d like to be able to access it by /cooks/some_action/5. The following route easily takes care of that:

Router::connect(
    '/cooks/:action/*', array('controller' => 'users')
);

This is telling the Router that any url beginning with /cooks/ should be sent to the users controller. The action called will depend on the value of the :action parameter. By using Route Elements, you can create variable routes, that accept user input or variables. The above route also uses the greedy star. The greedy star indicates to Router that this route should accept any additional positional arguments given. These arguments will be made available in the Passed Arguments array.

When generating URLs, routes are used too. Using array('controller' => 'users', 'action' => 'some_action', 5) as a url will output /cooks/some_action/5 if the above route is the first match found.

By default all named and passed arguments are extracted from URLs matching greedy templates. However, you can configure how and which named arguments are parsed using Router::connectNamed() if you need to.

Router::connect(
    '/:controller/:id',
    array('action' => 'view'),
    array('id' => '[0-9]+')
);

Router::connect('/:action', array('controller' => 'home'));

Router::connect(
    '/:userShortcut',
    array('controller' => 'teachers', 'action' => 'profile', 1),
    array('userShortcut' => '(?i:principal)')
);

Router::connect(
    '/:controller/:year/:month/:day',
    array('action' => 'index'),
    array(
        'year' => '[12][0-9]{3}',
        'month' => '0[1-9]|1[012]',
        'day' => '0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01]'
    )
);

// SomeController.php
public function view($articleId = null, $slug = null) {
    // some code here...
}

// routes.php
Router::connect(
    '/blog/:id-:slug', // E.g. /blog/3-CakePHP_Rocks
    array('controller' => 'blog', 'action' => 'view'),
    array(
        // order matters since this will simply map ":id" to
        // $articleId in your action
        'pass' => array('id', 'slug'),
        'id' => '[0-9]+'
    )
);

// view.ctp
// this will return a link to /blog/3-CakePHP_Rocks
echo $this->Html->link('CakePHP Rocks', array(
    'controller' => 'blog',
    'action' => 'view',
    'id' => 3,
    'slug' => 'CakePHP_Rocks'
));

Router::connect(
    '/:controller/:action/*',
    array(),
    array(
        'named' => array(
            'wibble',
            'fish' => array('action' => 'index'),
            'fizz' => array('controller' => array('comments', 'other')),
            'buzz' => 'val-[\d]+'
        )
    )
);

Configure::write('Routing.prefixes', array('admin'));

Router::connect(
    '/admin',
    array('controller' => 'pages', 'action' => 'index', 'admin' => true)
);

Configure::write('Routing.prefixes', array('admin', 'manager'));

Router::connect(
    "/{$prefix}/:plugin/:controller",
    array('action' => 'index', 'prefix' => $prefix, $prefix => true)
);
Router::connect(
    "/{$prefix}/:plugin/:controller/:action/*",
    array('prefix' => $prefix, $prefix => true)
);
Router::connect(
    "/{$prefix}/:controller",
    array('action' => 'index', 'prefix' => $prefix, $prefix => true)
);
Router::connect(
    "/{$prefix}/:controller/:action/*",
    array('prefix' => $prefix, $prefix => true)
);

// Go into a prefixed route.
echo $this->Html->link(
    'Manage posts',
    array('manager' => true, 'controller' => 'posts', 'action' => 'add')
);

// leave a prefix
echo $this->Html->link(
    'View Post',
    array('manager' => false, 'controller' => 'posts', 'action' => 'view', 5)
);

echo $this->Html->link(
    'New todo',
    array('plugin' => 'todo', 'controller' => 'todo_items', 'action' => 'create')
);

echo $this->Html->link(
    'New todo',
    array('plugin' => null, 'controller' => 'users', 'action' => 'profile')
);

Router::parseExtensions('html', 'rss');

Router::connect(
    '/page/:title',
    array('controller' => 'pages', 'action' => 'view'),
    array(
        'pass' => array('title')
    )
);

$this->Html->link(
    'Link title',
    array(
        'controller' => 'pages',
        'action' => 'view',
        'title' => 'super-article',
        'ext' => 'html'
    )
);

Router::connect(
    "/:controller/:id",
    array("action" => "edit", "[method]" => "PUT"),
    array("id" => "[0-9]+")
);

Passed Arguments¶

Passed arguments are additional arguments or path segments that are used when making a request. They are often used to pass parameters to your controller methods.

http://localhost/calendars/view/recent/mark

In the above example, both recent and mark are passed arguments to CalendarsController::view(). Passed arguments are given to your controllers in three ways. First as arguments to the action method called, and secondly they are available in $this->request->params['pass'] as a numerically indexed array. Lastly there is $this->passedArgs available in the same way as the second one. When using custom routes you can force particular parameters to go into the passed arguments as well.

If you were to visit the previously mentioned URL, and you had a controller action that looked like:

CalendarsController extends AppController {
    public function view($arg1, $arg2) {
        debug(func_get_args());
    }
}

You would get the following output:

Array
(
    [0] => recent
    [1] => mark
)

This same data is also available at $this->request->params['pass'] and $this->passedArgs in your controllers, views, and helpers. The values in the pass array are numerically indexed based on the order they appear in the called URL:

debug($this->request->params['pass']);
debug($this->passedArgs);

Either of the above would output:

Array
(
    [0] => recent
    [1] => mark
)

When generating URLs, using a routing array you add passed arguments as values without string keys in the array:

array('controller' => 'posts', 'action' => 'view', 5)

Since 5 has a numeric key, it is treated as a passed argument.

Named Parameters¶

You can name parameters and send their values using the URL. A request for /posts/view/title:first/category:general would result in a call to the view() action of the PostsController. In that action, you’d find the values of the title and category parameters inside $this->params['named']. They are also available inside $this->passedArgs. In both cases you can access named parameters using their name as an index. If named parameters are omitted, they will not be set.

Some summarizing examples for default routes might prove helpful:

URL to controller action mapping using default routes:

URL: /monkeys/jump
Mapping: MonkeysController->jump();

URL: /products
Mapping: ProductsController->index();

URL: /tasks/view/45
Mapping: TasksController->view(45);

URL: /donations/view/recent/2001
Mapping: DonationsController->view('recent', '2001');

URL: /contents/view/chapter:models/section:associations
Mapping: ContentsController->view();
$this->passedArgs['chapter'] = 'models';
$this->passedArgs['section'] = 'associations';
$this->params['named']['chapter'] = 'models';
$this->params['named']['section'] = 'associations';

When making custom routes, a common pitfall is that using named parameters will break your custom routes. In order to solve this you should inform the Router about which parameters are intended to be named parameters. Without this knowledge the Router is unable to determine whether named parameters are intended to actually be named parameters or routed parameters, and defaults to assuming you intended them to be routed parameters. To connect named parameters in the router use Router::connectNamed():

Router::connectNamed(array('chapter', 'section'));

Will ensure that your chapter and section parameters reverse route correctly.

When generating URLs, using a routing array you add named parameters as values with string keys matching the name:

array('controller' => 'posts', 'action' => 'view', 'chapter' => 'association')

Since ‘chapter’ doesn’t match any defined route elements, it’s treated as a named parameter.

Named parameters also support using arrays to generate and parse URLs. The syntax works very similar to the array syntax used for GET parameters. When generating URLs you can use the following syntax:

$url = Router::url(array(
    'controller' => 'posts',
    'action' => 'index',
    'filter' => array(
        'published' => 1,
        'frontpage' => 1
    )
));

The above would generate the URL /posts/index/filter[published]:1/filter[frontpage]:1. The parameters are then parsed and stored in your controller’s passedArgs variable as an array, just as you sent them to Router::url:

$this->passedArgs['filter'] = array(
    'published' => 1,
    'frontpage' => 1
);

Arrays can be deeply nested as well, allowing you even more flexibility in passing arguments:

$url = Router::url(array(
    'controller' => 'posts',
    'action' => 'search',
    'models' => array(
        'post' => array(
            'order' => 'asc',
            'filter' => array(
                'published' => 1
            )
        ),
        'comment' => array(
            'order' => 'desc',
            'filter' => array(
                'spam' => 0
            )
        ),
    ),
    'users' => array(1, 2, 3)
));

You would end up with a pretty long url like this (wrapped for easy reading):

posts/search
  /models[post][order]:asc/models[post][filter][published]:1
  /models[comment][order]:desc/models[comment][filter][spam]:0
  /users[]:1/users[]:2/users[]:3

And the resulting array that would be passed to the controller would match that which you passed to the router:

$this->passedArgs['models'] = array(
    'post' => array(
        'order' => 'asc',
        'filter' => array(
            'published' => 1
        )
    ),
    'comment' => array(
        'order' => 'desc',
        'filter' => array(
            'spam' => 0
        )
    ),
);

Router::connectNamed(false);

Router::connectNamed(false, array('default' => true));

Router::connectNamed(
    array('page' => '[\d]+'),
    array('default' => false, 'greedy' => false)
);

Router::connectNamed(
    array('page'),
    array('default' => false, 'greedy' => false)
);

Router::connectNamed(
    array('page' => array('action' => 'index')),
    array('default' => false, 'greedy' => false)
);

Router::connectNamed(
    array('page' => array('action' => 'index', 'controller' => 'pages')),
    array('default' => false, 'greedy' => false)
);

Reverse Routing¶

Reverse routing is a feature in CakePHP that is used to allow you to easily change your URL structure without having to modify all your code. By using routing arrays to define your URLs, you can later configure routes and the generated URLs will automatically update.

If you create URLs using strings like:

$this->Html->link('View', '/posts/view/' . $id);

And then later decide that /posts should really be called ‘articles’ instead, you would have to go through your entire application renaming URLs. However, if you defined your link like:

$this->Html->link(
    'View',
    array('controller' => 'posts', 'action' => 'view', $id)
);

Then when you decided to change your URLs, you could do so by defining a route. This would change both the incoming URL mapping, as well as the generated URLs.

When using array URLs, you can define both query string parameters and document fragments using special keys:

Router::url(array(
    'controller' => 'posts',
    'action' => 'index',
    '?' => array('page' => 1),
    '#' => 'top'
));

// will generate a URL like.
/posts/index?page=1#top

Redirect Routing¶

Redirect routing allows you to issue HTTP status 30x redirects for incoming routes, and point them at different URLs. This is useful when you want to inform client applications that a resource has moved and you don’t want to expose two URLs for the same content

Redirection routes are different from normal routes as they perform an actual header redirection if a match is found. The redirection can occur to a destination within your application or an outside location:

Router::redirect(
    '/home/*',
    array('controller' => 'posts', 'action' => 'view'),
    // or array('persist'=>array('id')) for default routing where the
    // view action expects $id as an argument
    array('persist' => true)
);

Redirects /home/* to /posts/view and passes the parameters to /posts/view. Using an array as the redirect destination allows you to use other routes to define where a URL string should be redirected to. You can redirect to external locations using string URLs as the destination:

Router::redirect('/posts/*', 'https://google.com', array('status' => 302));

This would redirect /posts/* to https://google.com with a HTTP status of 302.

Disabling the Default Routes¶

If you have fully customized all your routes, and want to avoid any possible duplicate content penalties from search engines, you can remove the default routes that CakePHP offers by deleting them from your application’s routes.php file.

This will cause CakePHP to serve errors, when users try to visit URLs that would normally be provided by CakePHP but have not been connected explicitly.

Custom Route Classes¶

Custom route classes allow you to extend and change how individual routes parse requests and handle reverse routing. A custom route class should be created in app/Routing/Route and should extend CakeRoute and implement one or both of match() and/or parse(). parse() is used to parse requests and match() is used to handle reverse routing.

You can use a custom route class when making a route by using the routeClass option, and loading the file containing your route before trying to use it:

App::uses('SlugRoute', 'Routing/Route');

Router::connect(
     '/:slug',
     array('controller' => 'posts', 'action' => 'view'),
     array('routeClass' => 'SlugRoute')
);

This route would create an instance of SlugRoute and allow you to implement custom parameter handling.

Router API¶

class Router¶

Router manages generation of outgoing URLs, and parsing of incoming request uri’s into parameter sets that CakePHP can dispatch.

static Router::connect($route, $defaults = array(), $options = array())¶

Parameters:

• $route (string) – A string describing the template of the route

• $defaults (array) – An array describing the default route parameters. These parameters will be used by default and can supply routing parameters that are not dynamic.

• $options (array) – An array matching the named elements in the route to regular expressions which that element should match. Also contains additional parameters such as which routed parameters should be shifted into the passed arguments, supplying patterns for routing parameters and supplying the name of a custom routing class.

Routes are a way of connecting request URLs to objects in your application. At their core routes are a set of regular expressions that are used to match requests to destinations.

Examples:

Router::connect('/:controller/:action/*');

The first parameter will be used as a controller name while the second is used as the action name. The ‘/*’ syntax makes this route greedy in that it will match requests like /posts/index as well as requests like /posts/edit/1/foo/bar .

Router::connect(
    '/home-page',
    array('controller' => 'pages', 'action' => 'display', 'home')
);

The above shows the use of route parameter defaults. And providing routing parameters for a static route.

Router::connect(
    '/:lang/:controller/:action/:id',
    array(),
    array('id' => '[0-9]+', 'lang' => '[a-z]{3}')
);

Shows connecting a route with custom route parameters as well as providing patterns for those parameters. Patterns for routing parameters do not need capturing groups, as one will be added for each route params.

$options offers three ‘special’ keys. pass, persist and routeClass have special meaning in the $options array.

• pass is used to define which of the routed parameters should be shifted into the pass array. Adding a parameter to pass will remove it from the regular route array. Ex. 'pass' => array('slug')

• persist is used to define which route parameters should be automatically included when generating new URLs. You can override persistent parameters by redefining them in a URL or remove them by setting the parameter to false. Ex. 'persist' => array('lang')

• routeClass is used to extend and change how individual routes parse requests and handle reverse routing, via a custom routing class. Ex. 'routeClass' => 'SlugRoute'

• named is used to configure named parameters at the route level. This key uses the same options as Router::connectNamed()

static Router::redirect($route, $url, $options = array())¶

Parameters:

• $route (string) – A route template that dictates which URLs should be redirected.

• $url (mixed) – Either a routing array or a string url for the destination of the redirect.

• $options (array) – An array of options for the redirect.

Connects a new redirection Route in the router. See Redirect Routing for more information.

static Router::connectNamed($named, $options = array())¶

Parameters:

• $named (array) – A list of named parameters. Key value pairs are accepted where values are either regex strings to match, or arrays.

• $options (array) – Allows control of all settings: separator, greedy, reset, default

Specifies what named parameters CakePHP should be parsing out of incoming URLs. By default CakePHP will parse every named parameter out of incoming URLs. See Controlling Named Parameters for more information.

static Router::promote($which = null)¶

Parameters:

• $which (integer) – A zero-based array index representing the route to move. For example, if 3 routes have been added, the last route would be 2.

Promote a route (by default, the last one added) to the beginning of the list.

static Router::url($url = null, $full = false)¶

Parameters:

• $url (mixed) – Cake-relative URL, like “/products/edit/92” or “/presidents/elect/4” or a routing array

• $full (mixed) – If (boolean) true, the full base URL will be prepended to the result. If an array accepts the following keys

• escape - used when making URLs embedded in HTML escapes query string ‘&’

• full - if true the full base URL will be prepended.

Generate a URL for the specified action. Returns a URL pointing to a combination of controller and action. $url can be:

• Empty - the method will find the address to the actual controller/action.

• ‘/’ - the method will find the base URL of application.

• A combination of controller/action - the method will find the URL for it.

There are a few ‘special’ parameters that can change the final URL string that is generated:

• base - Set to false to remove the base path from the generated URL. If your application is not in the root directory, this can be used to generate URLs that are ‘CakePHP relative’. CakePHP relative URLs are required when using requestAction.

• ? - Takes an array of query string parameters

• # - Allows you to set URL hash fragments.

• full_base - If true the value of Router::fullBaseUrl() will be prepended to generated URLs.

static Router::mapResources($controller, $options = array())¶

Creates REST resource routes for the given controller(s). See the REST section for more information.

static Router::parseExtensions($types)¶

Used in routes.php to declare which File Extensions your application supports. By providing no arguments, all file extensions will be supported.

static Router::setExtensions($extensions, $merge = true)¶

New in version 2.2.

Set or add valid extensions. To have the extensions parsed, you are still required to call Router::parseExtensions().

static Router::defaultRouteClass($classname)¶

New in version 2.1.

Set the default route to be used when connecting routes in the future.

static Router::fullBaseUrl($url = null)¶

New in version 2.4.

Get or set the baseURL used for generating URL’s. When setting this value you should be sure to include the fully qualified domain name including protocol.

Setting values with this method will also update App.fullBaseUrl in Configure.

class CakeRoute¶

The base class for custom routes to be based on.

CakeRoute::parse($url)¶

Parameters:

• $url (string) – The string URL to parse.

Parses an incoming URL, and generates an array of request parameters that Dispatcher can act upon. Extending this method allows you to customize how incoming URLs are converted into an array. Return false from URL to indicate a match failure.

CakeRoute::match($url)¶

Parameters:

• $url (array) – The routing array to convert into a string URL.

Attempt to match a URL array. If the URL matches the route parameters and settings, then return a generated string URL. If the URL doesn’t match the route parameters, false will be returned. This method handles the reverse routing or conversion of URL arrays into string URLs.

CakeRoute::compile()¶

Force a route to compile its regular expression.