The prefix automagic in CakePHP routing

By now everyone knows that CakePHP version 1.2 has a new and very powerful routing mechanism, similarly the admin routing where URLs like http://blah.com/admin/profiles/add actually calls admin_add action in the profiles controller is also well known. Apart from nice looking URLs Admin routing allows a convenient method to namespace your access control - denying every admin_ action to anyone but those with Admin roles is almost a one liner in your app_controller.

But there are times when you need more than just admin routing, how about something like http://blah.com/user/profiles/edit and http://blah.com/user/profiles/changepassword ? If this could be routed to an action like user_add and user_changepassword wouldn't it be great!! (eg: think ownership ACL checks)

The CakePHP devs thought that it indeed would be great and have provided a way to do exactly this. In your routes.php write

PLAIN TEXT
PHP:
  1. Router::connect('/user/:controller/:action', array('prefix' => 'user'));

Yep! thats it... now go ahead and write actions with user_ prefix and they will be called appropriately when there is /user/ in the URL, there is an added bonus - since the html helper now uses the Router to construct URL your links will also automagically have the proper prefix. Thus, if in your view you write

PLAIN TEXT
PHP:
  1. echo $html->link('Edit your profile', array('controller' => 'profiles', 'action' => 'user_edit'));

the resultant URL in href would be http://blah.com/user/profiles/edit

And yes again you can add as many prefixed routes as you want - so you can very easily have stuff like moderator, editor, manager in the URL with corresponding appropriate actions.

Go! Go crazy ;)

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Published:
4.4.08 / 3pm
Category:
CakePHP
Author:
Tarique Sani
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