Friendly URLs and the Zend Router
Creating custom friendly URLs using the Zend framework is really simple. The default routing setup for Zend is : ‘:module/:controller/:action/*’, (* will match any var/value) which is fine for most setups. However on some pages having the var/value might not look very good, for example this url is not very readable:
/popular/index/type/images/page/1/sortOrder/alltime (controller/action/var/value/var/value/var/value)
We would prefer something like this:
/popular/images/1/alltime
Luckily Zend provides a very flexible router that we can configure as we want. To start with, we create a new config file called routes.ini, and adds these lines:
routes.popular.route = popular/:type/:page/:sortOrder
routes.popular.defaults.controller = popular
routes.popular.defaults.action = index
routes.popular.defaults.type = images
routes.popular.defaults.sortOrder = alltime
routes.popular.defaults.page = 1
routes.popular.reqs.type = \w+
routes.popular.reqs.page = \d+
routes.popular.reqs.sortOrder = \w+
routes.popular.route tells us what to match. routes.popular.defaults.* sets default values for the variables (if none are given in the url). routes.popular.reqs.* sets requirements on the variables, for example that page must be a number.
The last thing we need to do is add a few lines to our bootstrap.php:
$config = new Zend_Config_Ini(APPLICATION_PATH . '/config/routes.ini');
$router = $frontController->getRouter();
$router->addConfig($config,'routes');
If you want to learn more about the Zend Framework:
Good tks. It would be good to tell people where does $frontController comes from (Zend_Controller_From::getinstance()). Some people don’t know that.
I also use Zend Router to make my url more friendly
A very concise and configurable method, thanks!
I have made the changes as you have mentioned ..
1>I created a routes.ini file and put in my config folder
2>In my bootstrap file i have added the code as mentioned in your blog.
Then when i try to run my code for that particular link…
i am not getting the url friendly urls..
For your help…
—————–My routes.ini—————————–
routes.popular.route = popular/:type
routes.popular.defaults.controller = order
routes.popular.defaults.action = index
routes.popular.defaults.type = myorder
routes.popular.reqs.type = \w+
routes.popular.reqs.page = \d+
routes.popular.reqs.sortOrder = \w+
—————————————————–
——————-Bootstrap.php———————–
$config1 = new Zend_Config_Ini( APP_PATH .DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . ‘/config/routes.ini’ );
$router1 = $front->getRouter();
$router1->addConfig($config1,’routes’);
————————————————————
Please help…
Do i need to make changes in any other place as well..like in the corresponding action…..
Thanks
Vishal
@Vishal What version of Zend Framework are you using? The default way of bootstrapping an zend application has changed some since I wrote the post.
I got in bootstrap this (insted of $frontController->getRouter()):
$config = new Zend_Config_Ini(APPLICATION_PATH . ‘/configs/routes.ini’, ‘routes’);
$router = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance()->getRouter();
$router->addConfig($config, ‘routes’);
Thanks for that 🙂