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Routing

Automatic default routing

Dynamic routing

FEAST contains three different methods for controlling routing. One is static, the other two are dynamic.

Automatic default routing

When a new Controller/Action pair is made with the php famine feast:create:action command, a default route is made. In addition, unless noview true is passed in, a View file is created as well.

The Controller and action by default become the URL. For example, AboutController->privacyGet will have a default url of /about/privacy for get requests. No user action is required to create this routing.

A special case exists for the index actions. If indexGet exists in AboutController, then /about will route to the indexGet (or post etc based on request type) method.

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Dynamic routing

There are two methods of dynamic routing, both of which use similar path strings for urls. The url path can contain substituted variables by adding in :variableName. Variables are considered dynamic properties. The final property can be marked as optional by preceding the : with a ?. This allows a route that can optionally omit the last section.

Examples: /user/:username/:password would be matched by /user/jeremy/feast and would NOT be matched by /user/jeremy

/user/:username/password/:password would be matched by /user/jeremy/password/feast and would NOT be matched by /user/jeremy/password

/user/:username/?:password would be matched by both /user/jeremy/feast and /user/jeremy

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Dynamic Routing via Attributes - Recommended

FEAST makes use of the Attributes feature of PHP 8.0 for custom route generation. Similar to annotations in docblocks in older versions of PHP, Attributes allow for a "comment" that can be evaluated by reflection. See \Feast\Attributes\Path for the attribute and below for an example:

<?php
class RegisterController 
{

#[Path(path:'register/:key/:registrationType', name:'freereg',method: Path::METHOD_GET|Path::METHOD_POST)]
    public function indexGet(string $key, string $registrationType): void

This creates a route at /register/$key/$registrationType for GET and POST requests to use the indexGet method of the RegisterController.

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Dynamic routing via method call - Not recommended

While using the default routing or the Attribute based routing is recommended, you can also call Feast\Router\Router::addRoute directly in bootstrap.php to create a route. This allows for easily finding your configured routes, but is a more verbose syntax. The parameters to addRoute are as follows (with a sample call below)

 public function addRoute(
        string $path,               // The url path for the route 
        string $controller,         // The name of the controller class to call (as string not class string)
        string $action,             // The name of the action method to call 
        ?string $routeName = null,  // An optional route name for easy use with 
                                    // redirect and forward (documented elsewhere).
        array $defaults = null,     // an array of default values for the method call if any
        string $httpMethod = 'GET', // The HTTP verb (can only specify one)
        string $module = 'Default'  // The Module to use. Modules documented elsewhere.
    ): void;
    
    $router->addRoute('/im-a-teapot/:user/:pass', 'Teapot', 'shortAndStout', null, ['test' => 'testing']);
    // The above will create a dynamic url at /im-a-teapot/{user}/{password} that will call TeapotController::shortAndStout
    // with the expected parameters of $user, $pass, and $test 

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Caching routes

To speed up your requests, you may cache your router configuration by running php famine feast:cache:router-generate. To clear the cache, run php famine feast:cache:router-clear.

If you cache your routes, changes will NOT take effect unless you clear or regenerate.

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