Enhanced Router
Enhanced Router is an extension to the Laravel 4 router and provides some enhanced functionality., (*1)
, (*2)
Installation
Add jasonlewis/enhanced-router
to composer.json
., (*3)
"jasonlewis/enhanced-router": "1.0.*"
Run composer update
to pull down the latest version of Enhanced Router. Now open up app/config/app.php
and add the service provider to your providers
array., (*4)
'providers' => array(
'JasonLewis\EnhancedRouter\EnhancedRouterServiceProvider'
)
That's it. You now have some enhanced functionality available to your routes., (*5)
Features
- Set
where
requirements on route group prefixes and domains.
- Use the
before
and after
methods to apply filters to an entire route group.
- Set filters to run on an HTTP verb or an array of HTTP verbs.
Using Enhanced Router
Once you have the package installed and the service provider in your providers
key you can begin using the features right away., (*6)
Route Group Prefixes
Using the Laravel 4 router there is no way to set a requirement on a prefix. What this means is that prefixes themselves are hard-coded. There are a number of real-world scenarios where being able to use variable prefixes is very useful., (*7)
Let's say you're building an application that has localization support and you're currently prefixing all your routes with the locale., (*8)
Route::get('{locale}/about', function($locale)
{
})->where('locale', '(en|fr)');
Route::get('{locale}', function($locale)
{
return 'Homepage';
})->where('locale', '(en|fr)');
For a small application this might suffice. But once your application gets quite large it can become a bit of a smell. And when it comes time to add another language you'll need to go through all the routes and add the language., (*9)
Using Enhanced Router you can set the requirement itself on the group. This means you only need to define the requirement once, and adding languages in the future isn't so painful., (*10)
Route::group(array('prefix' => '{locale}'), function()
{
Route::get('about', function($locale)
{
});
Route::get('/', function($locale)
{
return 'Homepage';
});
})->where('locale', '(en|fr)');
Parameters
It's important to note that the locale is actually given to each route as a parameter. The parameter is also given to every method of every controller that is within the group. When your route requires a parameter of its own it will be given after the prefix parameter., (*11)
Subdomain Routing
Using route groups in Laravel 4 you can specify the domain the group responds to. This is especially helpful when you want to route to a subdomain. Currently you can only route to a single subdomain or every subdomain., (*12)
Route::group(array('domain' => 'example.laravel.dev'), function()
{
});
Route::group(array('domain' => '{user}.laravel.dev'), function()
{
});
The first group will match example.laravel.dev
and the second will match any subdomain. Using the exact same syntax as prefixes you can also set the requirement on the subdomain., (*13)
Route::group(array('domain' => '{user}.laravel.dev'), function()
{
})->where('user', '(jason|shawn)');
Now the group will only match the subdomains jason.laravel.dev
and shawn.laravel.dev
., (*14)
Filters
Route Groups
Filters can now be applied to a group using the fluent syntax you might be familiar with from routes. The only thing to be aware of here is that you still need to provide an array as the first parameter to the group., (*15)
Route::group(array(), function()
{
})->before('auth');
All filters in the group will now have the auth
filter applied to them. When you have nested groups with filters applied to them the outermost filters are applied first since they are actually defined first., (*16)
Route::group(array(), function()
{
Route::group(array(), function()
{
})->before('csrf');
})->before('auth');
The above example would trigger the auth
filter first and then move on to the csrf
filter if the matched route was within that group., (*17)
Because of type hinting in the Laravel 4 router it's difficult to remove the empty array from the first parameter. If you aren't using a prefix or subdomain routing then you can use the new bunch
method., (*18)
Route::bunch(function()
{
})->before('auth');
This method is the same as group
except you don't have to pass in an array as the first parameter., (*19)
HTTP Verbs
Enhanced Router allows you to apply filters to all routes for specific HTTP verbs. Consider an application where all POST
requests require the csrf
filter., (*20)
Route::on('post', 'csrf');
Or you can use an array of verbs., (*21)
Route::on(['post', 'put'], 'csrf');
You can also use an array of filters to apply., (*22)
Route::on(['post', 'put'], ['csrf', 'auth']);
More Examples
This example shows how you can nest groups and use filters, domains, and prefixes all at once., (*23)
Route::group(array('prefix' => '{locale}'), function()
{
Route::controller('auth', 'AuthController');
Route::bunch(function()
{
Route::get('/', 'UserController@profile');
Route::group(array('domain' => 'admin.laravel.dev'), function()
{
Route::resource('posts', 'AdminPostsController');
Route::controller('/', 'AdminController');
});
})->before('auth');
})->where('locale', '(en|fr)');
Changes
v1.0.3
- Fixed a change that was made to the original Laravel router.
v1.0.2
- Fixed bug that re-ordered routes that were defined in groups. Route order is now maintained correctly.
v1.0.1
- Allow an array to be given as the expression and have it converted to a proper regular expression.
- Added
on
method to apply filters on a given HTTP verb.
v1.0.0
License
Released under the 2-clause BSD. Copyright 2013 Jason Lewis., (*24)