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Routing Component


Overview

The Phalcon\Mvc\Router component allows you to define routes that are mapped to controllers or handlers that receive and can handle the request. The router has two modes: MVC mode and match-only mode. The first mode is ideal for working with MVC applications.

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router;

$router = new Router();

$router->add(
    '/admin/invoices/list',
    [
        'controller' => 'invoices',
        'action'     => 'list',
    ]
);

$router->handle(
    $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"]
);

Constants

There are two constants available for the Phalcon\Mvc\Router component that are used to define the position of the route in the processing stack.

  • POSITION_FIRST
  • POSITION_LAST

Methods

public function __construct(
    bool $defaultRoutes = true
)

Phalcon\Mvc\Router constructor

public function add(
    string $pattern, 
    mixed $paths = null, 
    mixed $httpMethods = null, 
    mixed $position = Router::POSITION_LAST
): RouteInterface
Adds a route to the router without any HTTP constraint

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router;

$router->add("/about", "About::index");

$router->add(
    "/about",
    "About::index",
    ["GET", "POST"]
);

$router->add(
    "/about",
    "About::index",
    ["GET", "POST"],
    Router::POSITION_FIRST
);

public function addConnect(
    string $pattern, 
    mixed $paths = null, 
    mixed $position = Router::POSITION_LAST
): RouteInterface
Adds a route to the router that only match if the HTTP method is CONNECT

public function addDelete(
    string $pattern, 
    mixed $paths = null, 
    mixed $position = Router::POSITION_LAST
): RouteInterface
Adds a route to the router that only match if the HTTP method is DELETE

public function addGet(
    string $pattern, 
    mixed $paths = null, 
    mixed $position = Router::POSITION_LAST
): RouteInterface
Adds a route to the router that only match if the HTTP method is GET

public function addHead(
    string $pattern, 
    mixed $paths = null, 
    mixed $position = Router::POSITION_LAST
): RouteInterface
Adds a route to the router that only match if the HTTP method is HEAD

public function addOptions(
    string $pattern, 
    mixed $paths = null, 
    mixed $position = Router::POSITION_LAST
): RouteInterface
Add a route to the router that only match if the HTTP method is OPTIONS

public function addPatch(
    string $pattern, 
    mixed $paths = null, 
    mixed $position = Router::POSITION_LAST
): RouteInterface
Adds a route to the router that only match if the HTTP method is PATCH

public function addPost(
    string $pattern, 
    mixed $paths = null, 
    mixed $position = Router::POSITION_LAST
): RouteInterface
Adds a route to the router that only match if the HTTP method is POST

public function addPurge(
    string $pattern, 
    mixed $paths = null, 
    mixed $position = Router::POSITION_LAST
): RouteInterface
Adds a route to the router that only match if the HTTP method is PURGE (Squid and Varnish support)

public function addPut(
    string $pattern, 
    mixed $paths = null, 
    mixed $position = Router::POSITION_LAST
): RouteInterface
Adds a route to the router that only match if the HTTP method is PUT

public function addTrace(
    string $pattern, 
    mixed $paths = null, 
    mixed $position = Router::POSITION_LAST
): RouteInterface
Adds a route to the router that only match if the HTTP method is TRACE

public function attach(
    RouteInterface $route, 
    mixed $position = Router::POSITION_LAST
): RouterInterface
Attach Route object to the routes stack.

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router;
use Phalcon\Mvc\Router\Route;

class CustomRoute extends Route {
     // ...
}

$router = new Router();

$router->attach(
    new CustomRoute(
        "/about", 
        "About::index", 
        ["GET", "HEAD"]
    ),
    Router::POSITION_FIRST
);

public function clear(): void
Removes all the pre-defined routes

public function getActionName(): string
Returns the processed action name

public function getControllerName(): string
Returns the processed controller name

public function getMatchedRoute(): RouteInterface
Returns the route that matches the handled URI

public function getMatches(): array
Returns the sub expressions in the regular expression matched

public function getModuleName(): string
Returns the processed module name

public function getNamespaceName(): string
Returns the processed namespace name

public function getParams(): array
Returns the processed parameters

public function getRouteById(
    mixed $id
): RouteInterface | bool
Returns a route object by its id

public function getRouteByName(
    string $name
): RouteInterface | bool
Returns a route object by its name

public function getRoutes(): RouteInterface[]
Returns all the routes defined in the router

public function handle(string $uri): void
Handles routing information received from the rewrite engine

$router->handle("/posts/edit/1");

public function isExactControllerName(): bool
Returns whether controller name should not be mangled

public function mount(
    GroupInterface $group
): RouterInterface
Mounts a group of routes in the router

public function notFound(
    mixed $paths
): RouterInterface
Set a group of paths to be returned when none of the defined routes are matched

public function removeExtraSlashes(
    bool $remove
): RouterInterface
Set whether router must remove the extra slashes in the handled routes

public function setDefaultAction(
    string $actionName
): RouterInterface
Sets the default action name

public function setDefaultController(
    string $controllerName
): RouterInterface
Sets the default controller name

public function setDefaultModule(
    string $moduleName
): RouterInterface
Sets the name of the default module

public function setDefaultNamespace(
    string $namespaceName
): RouterInterface
Sets the name of the default namespace

public function setDefaults(
    array $defaults
): RouterInterface
Sets an array of default paths. If a route is missing a path the router will use the defined here. This method must not be used to set a 404 route

$router->setDefaults(
    [
        "module" => "common",
        "action" => "index",
    ]
);

public function getDefaults(): array
Returns an array of default parameters

public function wasMatched(): bool
Checks if the router matches any of the defined routes

Defining Routes

Phalcon\Mvc\Router provides advanced routing capabilities. In MVC mode, you can define routes and map them to controllers/actions that you require. A route is defined as follows:

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router;

$router = new Router();

$router->add(
    '/admin/invoices/list',
    [
        'controller' => 'invoices',
        'action'     => 'list',
    ]
);

$router->add(
    '/admin/customers/list',
    [
        'controller' => 'customers',
        'action'     => 'list',
    ]
);

$router->handle(
    $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"]
);

The first parameter of the add() method is the pattern you want to match and, optionally, the second parameter is a set of paths. In the above example, for the URI /admin/invoices/list, the InvoicesController will be loaded and the listAction will be called. It is important to remember that the router does not execute the controller and action, it only collects this information and then forwards it to the Phalcon\Mvc\Dispatcher which executes them.

An application can have many paths and defining routes one by one can be a cumbersome task. Phalcon\Mvc\Router offers an easier way to register routes.

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router;

$router = new Router();

$router->add(
    '/admin/:controller/:action/:params',
    [
        'controller' => 1,
        'action'     => 2,
        'params'     => 3,
    ]
);

In the example above, we are using wildcards to make a route valid for many URIs. For example, by accessing the following URL (/admin/customers/view/12345/1) would produce:

Controller Action Parameter Parameter
customers view 12345 1

The add() method receives a pattern that can optionally have predefined placeholders and regular expression modifiers. All the routing patterns must start with a forward slash character (/). The regular expression syntax used is the same as the PCRE regular expressions.

NOTE

It is not necessary to add regular expression delimiters. All route patterns are case-insensitive.

The second parameter defines how the matched parts should bind to the controller/action/parameters. Matching parts are placeholders or subpatterns delimited by parentheses (round brackets). In the example given above, the first subpattern matched (:controller) is the controller part of the route, the second the action (:action) and after that any parameters passed (:params).

These placeholders make the route expressions more readable and easier to understand. The following placeholders are supported:

Placeholder Regular Expression Matches
/:module /([a-zA-Z0-9\_\-]+) Valid module name with alpha-numeric characters only
/:controller /([a-zA-Z0-9\_\-]+) Valid controller name with alpha-numeric characters only
/:action /([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+) Valid action name with alpha-numeric characters only
/:params (/.*)* List of optional words separated by slashes. Only use this placeholder at the end of a route
/:namespace /([a-zA-Z0-9\_\-]+) Single level namespace name
/:int /([0-9]+) Integer parameter

Controller names are camelized, this means that characters (-) and (_) are removed and the next character is uppercased. For instance, some_controller is converted to SomeController.

Since you can add as many routes as needed using the add() method, the order in which routes are added indicates their relevance. The routes added last have more relevance than the ones added above them. Internally, all defined routes are traversed in reverse order until Phalcon\Mvc\Router finds the one that matches the given URI and processes it, while ignoring the rest.

Named Parameters

The example below demonstrates how to define names to route parameters:

<?php

$router->add(
    //         1     /     2    /    3     /   4
    '/admin/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/([0-9]{2})/:params',
    [
        'controller' => 'invoices',
        'action'     => 'view',
        'year'       => 1, // ([0-9]{4})
        'month'      => 2, // ([0-9]{2})
        'day'        => 3, // ([0-9]{2})
        'params'     => 4, // :params
    ]
);

In the above example, the route does not define a controller or action. Those are replaced with fixed values (invoices and view). The user will never know the underlying controller that is dispatched by the request. In the controller, those named parameters can be accessed as follows:

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Controller;
use Phalcon\Mvc\Dispatcher;

/**
 * @property Dispatcher $dispatcher
 */
class InvoicesController extends Controller
{
    public function viewAction()
    {
        // year
        $year = $this->dispatcher->getParam('year');

        // month
        $month = $this->dispatcher->getParam('month');

        // day
        $day = $this->dispatcher->getParam('day');

        // ...
    }
}

Note that the values of the parameters are obtained from the dispatcher. There is also another way to create named parameters as part of the pattern:

<?php

$router->add(
    '/admin/{year}/{month}/{day}/{invoiceNo:[0-9]+}',
    [
        'controller' => 'invoices',
        'action'     => 'view',
    ]
);

You can access their values in the same way as before:

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Controller;
use Phalcon\Mvc\Dispatcher;

/**
 * @property Dispatcher $dispatcher
 */
class InvoicesController extends Controller
{
    public function viewAction()
    {
        // year
        $year = $this->dispatcher->getParam('year');

        // month
        $month = $this->dispatcher->getParam('month');

        // day 
        $day = $this->dispatcher->getParam('day');

        // invoiceNo
        $invoicNo = $this->dispatcher->getParam('invoiceNo');

        // ...
    }
}

Short Syntax

Phalcon\Mvc\Router also offers an alternative, shorter syntax. The following examples produce the same result:

<?php

$router->add(
    '/admin/{year:[0-9]{4}}/{month:[0-9]{2}}/{day:[0-9]{2}}/:params',
    'Invoices::view'
);

$router->add(
    '/admin/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/([0-9]{2})/:params',
    [
        'controller' => 'invoices',
        'action'     => 'view',
        'year'       => 1, // ([0-9]{4})
        'month'      => 2, // ([0-9]{2})
        'day'        => 3, // ([0-9]{2})
        'params'     => 4, // :params
    ]
);

Array and Short Syntax

Array and short syntax can be mixed to define a route, in this case note that named parameters automatically are added to the route paths according to the position on which they were defined:

<?php

$router->add(
    '/admin/{year:[0-9]{4}}/([0-9]{2})/([0-9]{2})/:params',
    [
        'controller' => 'invoices',
        'action'     => 'view',
        'month'      => 2, // ([0-9]{2}) // 2
        'day'        => 3, // ([0-9]{2}) // 3
        'params'     => 4, // :params    // 4
    ]
);
The first position must be skipped because it is used for the named parameter year.

Modules

You can define routes with modules in the path. This is specially suitable to multi-module applications. You can define a default route that includes a module wildcard.

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router;

$router = new Router(false);

$router->add(
    '/:module/:controller/:action/:params',
    [
        'module'     => 1,
        'controller' => 2,
        'action'     => 3,
        'params'     => 4,
    ]
);

With the above route, you need to always have the module name as part of your URL. For example, for the following URL: /admin/invoices/view/12345, will be processed as:

Module Controller Action Parameter
admin invoices view 12345

Or you can bind specific routes to specific modules:

<?php

$router->add(
    '/login',
    [
        'module'     => 'session',
        'controller' => 'login',
        'action'     => 'index',
    ]
);

$router->add(
    '/invoices/:action',
    [
        'module'     => 'admin',
        'controller' => 'invoices',
        'action'     => 1,
    ]
);

Or bind them to specific namespaces:

<?php

$router->add(
    '/:namespace/login',
    [
        'namespace'  => 1,
        'controller' => 'login',
        'action'     => 'index',
    ]
);

The full namespace needs to be passed separately:

<?php

$router->add(
    '/login',
    [
        'namespace'  => 'Admin\Controllers',
        'controller' => 'login',
        'action'     => 'index',
    ]
);

HTTP Methods

When you add a route using simply add(), the route will be enabled for any HTTP method. Sometimes we can restrict a route to a specific method. This is particularly useful when creating RESTful applications.

<?php

// GET
$router->addGet(
    '/invoices/edit/{id}',
    'Invoices::edit'
);

// POST
$router->addPost(
    '/invoices/save',
    'Invoices::save'
);

// POST/PUT
$router->add(
    '/invoices/update',
    'Invoices::update'
)->via(
    [
        'POST',
        'PUT',
    ]
);

Converters

Converters are snippets of code that allow you to convert the parameters of a route prior to it being sent to the dispatcher

<?php

$route = $router->add(
    '/products/{slug:[a-z\-]+}',
    [
        'controller' => 'products',
        'action'     => 'show',
    ]
);

$route->convert(
    'slug',
    function ($slug) {
        return str_replace('-', '', $slug);
    }
);
In the above example, the parameter's name allows dashes, therefore a URL can be /products/new-ipod-nano-generation. The convert method will change the parameter to newipodnanogeneration.

Another use case for converters is when binding a model to a route. This allows the model to be passed into the defined action directly.

<?php

$route = $router->add(
    '/products/{id}',
    [
        'controller' => 'products',
        'action'     => 'show',
    ]
);

$route->convert(
    'id',
    function ($id) {
        return Product::findFirstById($id);
    }
);
In the above example the ID is passed in the URL and our converter gets the record from the database, passing it back.

Groups

If a set of routes have common paths they can be grouped for easier maintenance. To achieve this, we utilize the Phalcon\Mvc\Router\Group component

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router;
use Phalcon\Mvc\Router\Group;

$router   = new Router();
$invoices = new RouterGroup(
    [
        'module'     => 'admin',
        'controller' => 'invoices',
    ]
);

$invoices->setPrefix('/invoices');

$invoices->add(
    '/list',
    [
        'action' => 'list',
    ]
);

$invoices->add(
    '/edit/{id}',
    [
        'action' => 'edit',
    ]
);

$invoices->add(
    '/view',
    [
        'controller' => 'common',
        'action'     => 'index',
    ]
);

$router->mount($invoices);
In the above example, we first create a group with a common module and controller. We then add the prefix for the group to be /invoices. We then add more routes to the group, some without parameters and some with. The last route allows us to use a different controller than the default one (common). Finally, we add the group to the router.

We can extend the Phalcon\Mvc\Router\Group component and register our routes in it on a per group basis. This allows us to better organize the routes of our application.

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router\Group;

class InvoicesRoutes extends Group
{
    public function initialize()
    {
        $this->setPaths(
            [
                'module'    => 'invoices',
                'namespace' => 'Invoices\Controllers',
            ]
        );

        $this->setPrefix('/invoices');

        $this->add(
            '/list',
            [
                'action' => 'list',
            ]
        );

        $this->add(
            '/edit/{id}',
            [
                'action' => 'edit',
            ]
        );

        $this->add(
            '/view',
            [
                'controller' => 'common',
                'action'     => 'index',
            ]
        );
    }
}

Now we can mount the custom group class in the router:

<?php

$router->mount(
    new InvoicesRoutes()
);

Matching Routes

A valid URI must be passed to the Router so that it can process it and find a matching route. By default, the routing URI is taken from the $_GET['_url'] variable that is created by the rewrite engine module. A couple of rewrite rules that work very well with Phalcon are:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond   %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond   %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule   ^((?s).*)$ index.php?_url=/$1 [QSA,L]

In this configuration, any requests to files or folders that do not exist will be sent to index.php. The following example shows how to use this as a stand alone component:

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router;

$router = new Router();

// ...

$router->handle(
    $_GET["_url"]
);

echo $router->getControllerName();
echo $router->getActionName();

$route = $router->getMatchedRoute();
In the above example, we first create a router object. We can have some code after that, such as defining services, routes etc.. We then take the _url element from the $_GET superglobal and after that we can get the controller name or the action name or even get back the matched route.

Naming Routes

Each route that is added to the router is stored internally as a Phalcon\Mvc\Router\Route object. That class encapsulates all the details of each route. For instance, we can give a name to a path to identify it uniquely in our application. This is especially useful if you want to create URLs from it.

<?php

$route = $router->add(
    '/admin/{year:[0-9]{4}}/{month:[0-9]{2}}/{day:[0-9]{2}}/{id:[0-9]{4}',
    'Invoices::view'
);

$route->setName('invoices-view');

Then, using for example the component Phalcon\Url we can build routes from the defined name:

<?php

// /admin/2019/12/25/1234
echo $url->get(
    [
        'for'   => 'invoices-view',
        'year'  => '2019',
        'month' => '12',
        'day'   => '25',
        'id'    => '1234',
    ]
);

Default Behavior

Phalcon\Mvc\Router has a default behavior providing simple routing that always expects a URI and matches the following pattern:

/:controller/:action/:params

For example, for a URL like this https://dev.phalcon.od/download/linux/ubuntu.html, this router will translate it as follows:

Controller Action Parameter
DownloadController linuxAction ubuntu.html

If you do not want the router to follow this behavior, you must create the router passing false in the constructor.

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router;

$router = new Router(false);

Default Route

When your application is accessed without any route, the / route is used to determine what paths must be used to show the initial page in your application

<?php

$router->add(
    '/',
    [
        'controller' => 'index',
        'action'     => 'index',
    ]
);

Not Found (404)

If none of the routes, specified in the router, match, you can define a 404 controller/action by using the notFound method.

<?php

$router->notFound(
    [
        'controller' => 'index',
        'action'     => 'fourOhFour',
    ]
);

NOTE

This will only work if the router was created without default routes: $router = Phalcon\Mvc\Router(false);

Defaults

You can define default values for module, controller and `action. When a route is missing any of these elements in its path, the router will automatically use the default value set.

<?php

$router->setDefaultModule('admin');
$router->setDefaultNamespace('Admin\Controllers');
$router->setDefaultController('index');
$router->setDefaultAction('index');

$router->setDefaults(
    [
        'controller' => 'index',
        'action'     => 'index',
    ]
);

Trailing Slashes

Sometimes a route could be accessed with extra/trailing slashes. The extra slashes will produce a not-found status in the dispatcher, which is not what we want. You can set up the router to automatically remove the slashes from the end of handled route.

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router;

$router = new Router();

$router->removeExtraSlashes(true);

Or, you can modify specific routes to optionally accept trailing slashes:

<?php

$route = $router->add(
    '/admin/:controller/status[/]{0,1}',
    [
        'controller' => 2,
        'action'     => 'status',
    ]
);
In the above, the [/]{0,1} allows for an optional trailing slash

Callbacks

Sometimes, routes should only be matched if they meet specific conditions. You can add arbitrary conditions to routes using the beforeMatch callback. If this function return false, the route will be treated as non-matched:

<?php

$route = $router->add(
    '/login',
    [
        'module'     => 'admin',
        'controller' => 'session',
    ]
);

$route->beforeMatch(
    function ($uri, $route) {
        if (true === isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']) && 
            $_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH'] === 'XMLHttpRequest'
        ) {
            return false;
        }

        return true;
    }
);
The above will check if the request has been made with AJAX and return false if it was not

You can create a filter class, to allow you to inject the same functionality in different routes.

<?php

class AjaxFilter
{
    public function check()
    {
        return $_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH'] === 'XMLHttpRequest';
    }
}

To set this up, we just add the class to the beforeMatch call.

<?php

$route = $router->add(
    '/login',
    [
        'module'     => 'admin',
        'controller' => 'session',
    ]
);

$route->beforeMatch(
    [
        new AjaxFilter(),
        'check'
    ]
);

Finally you can use the beforeMatch method (or event) to check whether this was an AJAX call or not.

<?php

use Phalcon\Di\DiInterface;
use Phalcon\Http\Request;
use Phalcon\Mvc\Router\Route;

$route = $router->add(
    '/login',
    [
        'module'     => 'admin',
        'controller' => 'session',
    ]
);

$route->beforeMatch(
    function ($uri, $route) {
        /**
         * @var string     $uri
         * @var Route       $route
         * @var DiInterface $this
         * @var Request     $request
         */
        $request = $this->getShared('request');

        return $request->isAjax();
    }
);

Hostname

The Phalcon\Mvc\Router component also allows for hostname constraints. This means that the specific routes or a group of routes can be restricted to only match the route if it originated from a specific hostname.

<?php

$route = $router->add(
    '/admin/invoices/:action/:params',
    [
        'module'     => 'admin',
        'controller' => 'invoices',
        'action'     => 1,
        'params'     => 2,
    ]
);

$route->setHostName('dev.phalcon.ld');

The hostname can also be passed as a regular expressions:

<?php

$route = $router->add(
    '/admin/invoices/:action/:params',
    [
        'module'     => 'admin',
        'controller' => 'invoices',
        'action'     => 1,
        'params'     => 2,
    ]
);

$route->setHostName('([a-z]+).phalcon.ld');

When using groups of routes, you can set the hostname constraints that apply for every route in the group.

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router\Group;

$invoices = new Group(
    [
        'module'     => 'admin',
        'controller' => 'invoices',
    ]
);

$invoices->setHostName('dev.phalcon.ld');
$invoices->setPrefix('/invoices');

$invoices->add(
    '/',
    [
        'action' => 'index',
    ]
);

$invoices->add(
    '/list',
    [
        'action' => 'list',
    ]
);

$invoices->add(
    '/view/{id}',
    [
        'action' => 'view',
    ]
);

$router->mount($invoices);

Testing

This component does not have any dependencies. As such you can create unit tests to test your routes.

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router;

$testRoutes = [
    '/',
    '/index',
    '/index/index',
    '/index/test',
    '/products',
    '/products/index/',
    '/products/show/101',
];

$router = new Router();

foreach ($testRoutes as $testRoute) {
    // Handle the route
    $router->handle($testRoute);

    echo 'Testing ', $testRoute, '<br>';

    // Check if some route was matched
    if ($router->wasMatched()) {
        echo 'Controller: ', $router->getControllerName(), '<br>';
        echo 'Action: ', $router->getActionName(), '<br>';
    } else {
        echo "The route wasn't matched by any route<br>";
    }

    echo '<br>';
}

Events

Similar to other Phalcon components, Phalcon\Mvc\Router also has events, when an Events Manager is present. The available events are:

Event Fired when
router:afterCheckRoutes After checking all the routes
router:beforeCheckRoute Before checking a route
router:beforeCheckRoutes Before checking all loaded routes
router:beforeMount Before mounting a new route
router:matchedRoute When a route is matched
router:notMatchedRoute When a route is not matched

Annotations

This component provides a variant that is integrated with the annotations service. Using this strategy you can write the routes directly in the controllers instead of adding them in router component directly.

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router\Annotations;

$container['router'] = function () {
    $router = new Annotations(false);

    $router->addResource('Invoices', '/admin/invoices');

    return $router;
};
In the above example, we utilize the Phalcon\Mvc\Router\Annotations component to set up our routes. We pass false to remove the default behavior. After that we are instructing the component to read the annotations from the InvoicesController if the URI matches /admin/invoices.

The InvoicesController will need to have the following implementation:

<?php

/**
 * @RoutePrefix('/admin/invoices')
 */
class InvoicesController
{
    /**
     * @Get(
     *     '/'
     * )
     */
    public function indexAction()
    {

    }

    /**
     * @Get(
     *     '/edit/{id:[0-9]+}',
     *     name='invoice-edit'
     * )
     */
    public function editAction($id)
    {

    }

    /**
     * @Route(
     *     '/save',
     *     methods={'POST', 'PUT'},
     *     name='invoice-save'
     * )
     */
    public function saveAction()
    {

    }

    /**
     * @Route(
     *     '/delete/{id:[0-9]+}',
     *     methods='DELETE',
     *     converters={
     *         id='MyConverters::checkId'
     *     }
     * )
     */
    public function deleteAction($id)
    {

    }
}

Only methods marked with valid annotations are used as routes. The available annotations are:

Annotation Description Usage
Delete Restrict the HTTP method to DELETE @Delete('/invoices/delete/{id}')
Get Restrict the HTTP method to GET @Get('/invoices/search')
Options Restrict the HTTP method to OPTIONS @Option('/invoices/info')
Post Restrict the HTTP method to POST @Post('/invoices/save')
Put Restrict the HTTP method to PUT @Put('/invoices/save')
Route Mark a method as a route. Must be placed in a method docblock @Route('/invoices/show')
RoutePrefix Prefix to be prepended to each route URI. Must be placed in the class docblock @RoutePrefix('/invoices')

For annotations that add routes, the following parameters are supported:

Name Description Usage
converters A hash of converters for the parameters @Route('/posts/{id}/{slug}', converter={id='MyConverter::getId'})
methods One or more HTTP methods allowed for the route @Route('/api/products', methods={'GET', 'POST'})
name The name for the route @Route('/api/products', name='get-products')
paths Paths array for the route @Route('/invoices/view/{id}/{slug}', paths={module='backend'})

If you are using modules in your application, it is better use the addModuleResource() method:

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router\Annotations;

$container['router'] = function () {
    $router = new Annotations(false);

    $router->addModuleResource(
        'admin', 
        'Invoices', 
        '/admin/invoices'
    );

    return $router;
};
In the above we will read the annotations from Admin\Controllers\InvoicesController if the URI starts with /admin/invoices.

The router also understand prefixes to ensure that the routes are resolved as fast as possible. For instance for the following routes:

/clients/{clientId:[0-9]+}/
/clients/{clientId:[0-9]+}/robots
/clients/{clientId:[0-9]+}/parts

only the /clients prefix can be used in all controllers, thus speeding up the lookup.

Dependency Injection

You can register the router component during the container setup, to make it available inside the controllers or any other components that extend the Phalcon\Di\Injectable component.

You can use the example below in your bootstrap file (for example index.php or app/config/services.php if you use Phalcon Developer Tools).

<?php

$container->set(
    'router',
    function () {
        require __DIR__ . '/app/config/routes.php';

        return $router;
    }
);

You need to create app/config/routes.php and add the router initialization code:

<?php

use Phalcon\Mvc\Router;

$router = new Router();

$router->add(
    '/login',
    [
        'controller' => 'login',
        'action'     => 'index',
    ]
);

$router->add(
    '/invoices/:action',
    [
        'controller' => 'invoices',
        'action'     => 1,
    ]
);

return $router;

Custom

You can create your own components by implementing the supplied interfaces: - Phalcon\Mvc\Router\GroupInterface - Phalcon\Mvc\Router\RouteInterface - Phalcon\Mvc\RouterInterface

Examples

The following are examples of custom routes:

<?php

// '/system/admin/a/edit/7001'
$router->add(
    '/system/:controller/a/:action/:params',
    [
        'controller' => 1,
        'action'     => 2,
        'params'     => 3,
    ]
);

// '/en/news'
$router->add(
    '/([a-z]{2})/:controller',
    [
        'controller' => 2,
        'action'     => 'index',
        'language'   => 1,
    ]
);

// '/en/news'
$router->add(
    '/{language:[a-z]{2}}/:controller',
    [
        'controller' => 2,
        'action'     => 'index',
    ]
);

// '/admin/posts/edit/100'
$router->add(
    '/admin/:controller/:action/:int',
    [
        'controller' => 1,
        'action'     => 2,
        'id'         => 3,
    ]
);

// '/posts/2015/02/some-cool-content'
$router->add(
    '/posts/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/([a-z\-]+)',
    [
        'controller' => 'posts',
        'action'     => 'show',
        'year'       => 1,
        'month'      => 2,
        'title'      => 3,
    ]
);

// '/manual/en/translate.adapter.html'
$router->add(
    '/manual/([a-z]{2})/([a-z\.]+)\.html',
    [
        'controller' => 'manual',
        'action'     => 'show',
        'language'   => 1,
        'file'       => 2,
    ]
);

// /feed/fr/hot-news.atom
$router->add(
    '/feed/{lang:[a-z]+}/{blog:[a-z\-]+}\.{type:[a-z\-]+}',
    'Feed::get'
);

// /api/v1/users/peter.json
$router->add(
    '/api/(v1|v2)/{method:[a-z]+}/{param:[a-z]+}\.(json|xml)',
    [
        'controller' => 'api',
        'version'    => 1,
        'format'     => 4,
    ]
);

NOTE

Be careful when allowing characters in regular expressions for controllers and namespaces. These will become class names and in turn they will interact with the file system. As such, it is possible that an attacker can access unauthorized files. A safe regular expression is: /([a-zA-Z0-9\_\-]+)