README

Table of Contents

Install
Overview of Attributes
Usage
- Examples
  - ..1. Example: Simple
  - ..2. Example: Complete
Appendix: .htaccess

version: $Id$ ($Date$)

Note	examples updated to use RouteMatch.

Add routing to your application by simply using attributes on your methods to configure the route.

Install

Installtion is as easy as asking composer to add the package as a requirement.

require via composer

composer require inanepain/routing

Overview of Attributes

What is an Attribute? It’s a class just like any other class only with the Attribute Attribute. So why are you treating it more like an enum or Map that can only hold a few values describing something? You don’t do it with the classes you uses your custom attributes on! But I don’t blame you, it all comes down to some pour choices in wording used by the documentation.

So how should I be think of Attributes? As classes naturally. Classes to object that get things done to be more exact. That #[Route(name: 'home', path: '/')] like might make more sense when you start looking at it like this: $route = new Route('/', 'home');. Here a fun experiment to try; remove the Attribute from Route then have the Router take an array of Route parameters as argument. Easy, wasn’t it and you understand Attributes and with practice you spot many more classes you can use as such.

Hope that gets you thinking about Attributes in a new, more realistic manor that leads to you adding that #[Attribute] line to a good many more classes.

Usage

Quick overview showing the bits relating to the Route Attribute in two examples. Neither are complete, though the simple example would run with minimum fuss. Check the Appendix for the .htaccess file you will need to use with the index.php file.

Examples

An example is worth a thousand words, well here come two examples.

..1. Example: Simple

Super simple example using php built in web server.
We create a class, let’s call it MainController.php, and add Route attributes to the methods we want routes to. The path is matched against the url with regex.

MainController.php

class MainController {
    ...

    #[Route(path: '/', name: 'home')]
    public function home(): void {
        ...
        echo <<<HTML
...
HTML;
    }

    ...

    #[Route(path: '/product/{product}', name: 'product', )]
    public function productTask(array $params): void {
        $sql = "...where product_id = '{$params['product']}'";
        ...
        echo <<<HTML
...
HTML;
    }

    ...
}

Our "application" sits in index.php which will pass through existing files and try route everything else.
We simple add our MainController to the Router and then check for a match.

index.php

use App\Controller\MainController;
use Inane\Routing\Router;

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

$file = 'public' . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];

// Server existing files in web dir
if (file_exists($file) && !is_dir($file)) return false;

$router = new Router();
// Add the controllers to the Router
$router->addRoutes([MainController::class]);

if ($match = $router->match()) { // Check for a Route Match
    // create the controller
    $controller = new $match->class();
    // and call the method with paramaters.
    $controller->{$match->method}($match->params);
} else { // Otherwise do what ever else, we'll through an error.
    throw new Exception('Request Error: Unmatched `file` or `route`!');
}

Now let’s file up php’s built in server:

php built-in server

php -S localhost:8080 -t public index.php

All thay’s left is to visit the url in your favorit browser.
And that’s a real basic emample of how it’s and it doesn’t really get much more complex.

..2. Example: Complete

Now let’s try a slightly more complex example.

The various pieces

Again we setup our routes by using attributes on the controller methods.

IndexController.php

class IndexController extends AbstractController {
    ...

    #[Route(path: '/', name: 'home')]
    public function indexTask(): array {
        ...
    }

    ...

    #[Route(path: '/product/{product}', name: 'product', )]
    public function productTask(): array {
        ...
    }

    ...

    #[Route(path: '/product/{product}/review/{id<\d+>}', name: 'product-review')]
    public function reviewTask(): array {
        ...
    }

    ...
}

But now we’re adding a view template to the mix. Not that this does much but it’s just for show. So here we render an anchor.

index.phtml (view template)

...
<a class="menu-item" href="<?=$route->url('product', ['product' => $item['id']])?>"><?=$item['name_long']?></a>
...

That should give us this.

website (rendered view)

<a class="menu-item" href="/product/mega-maid">Mega Maid (Household Robot Helper)</a>

Great.

Putting it all together

Chuck that all into an app, I’m only showing the parts relavent to the routing.

Application.php

class Application {
    ...

    protected function initialise(): void {
        ...
        $this->router = new Router([
            IndexController::class,
            ...
            WhoopsController::class,
            ...
        ]);
        ...
    }

    ...

    public function run(): void {
        ...
        if ($match = $this->router->match()) {
            $controller = new $match->class($match['params']);
            $data = $controller->{$match['method']}();
            ...
            // since 1.4.0: using the RouteMatch we can now easily get the template
            $body = $this->renderer->render($match->template, $data);
            ...
        }
        ...
    }

    ...
}

and you’re of to the races.

Appendix: .htaccess

You will also need to do some magic in your .htaccess file so that index.php handles all requests.

RewriteEngine On
# The following rule tells Apache that if the requested filename exists, simply serve it.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -s [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -l [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [L]

# The following rewrites all other queries to index.php. The
# condition ensures that if you are using Apache aliases to do
# mass virtual hosting or installed the project in a subdirectory,
# the base path will be prepended to allow proper resolution of
# the index.php file; it will work in non-aliased environments
# as well, providing a safe, one-size fits all solution.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI}::$1 ^(/.+)/(.*)::\2$
RewriteRule ^(.*) - [E=BASE:%1]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ %{ENV:BASE}/index.php [L]

<Limit GET HEAD POST PUT DELETE OPTIONS>
# Deprecated apache 2.2 syntax:
# Order Allow,Deny
# Allow from all
# Apache > 2.4 requires:
Require all granted
</Limit>

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