On Mar 18, 11:53 am, dom111 <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I'm relatively new to Cake as a framework, but compared to the others
> I've looked at, it ticks the boxes that I've been looking for, so
> thanks for all the hard work the team has put in!
>
> I've got a pretty specific issue, and one I'm not finding a lot of
> information on (maybe I'm not looking in the right places, I hope I
> haven't missed a discussion in here...), and I'm hoping it's not
> because it's too hard to do...
>
> It's regarding routes, and as the subject suggests, dynamic database-
> driven ones...
>
> I'm currently working on a site that can handle a dynamic admin-
> managed hierarchy, with customisable URLs and the ability to link the
> same information in many places, building the correct breadcrumbs/
> navigation. Maybe I'm the only person crazy enough to think of it, but
> I'd like to think not...
>
> What I'd like to do is match the following URLs (for example):
>
> / => pages->index()
>
> // shop data
> /shop => shop->index()
> /shop/food => shop->section('food') or sections->view('food')
> /shop/food/banana => shop->product('banana') or products->view
> ('banana')
> /shop/food/chocolate => shop->section('chocolate') or sections->view
> ('chocolate')
> /shop/food/chocolate/mars-bar => shop->product('mars-bar') or products-
>
> >view('mars-bar')
>
> // static pages
> /pages/about => pages->view('about')
> /pages/about/opening-times => pages->view('opening-times')
>
> // 'modules' eg. more processing to manage than a static page: contact
> validation/emailing/database
> /pages/about/donate => modules->load('donate')
> /pages/about/contact-us => modules->load('contact-us')
>
> Also, it'd be nice (but to avoid making things even more complicated,
> not essential) to have /shop/food/choclate/search.html or filter.html
> to redirect to the shop->
>
> I know I could easily hard-code all the hierarchy, but I need to give
> the ability to re-arrange the sections to the site administrator.
>
> The attempts I've had so far, have yielded less than successful
> results...
>
> I created a Route model in which the structure was:
>
> id int(11) auto_increment
> pattern varchar(255)
> controller varchar(255)
> action varchar(255)
> permalink varchar(255)
> left int(11)
> right int(11)
> parent_id int(11)
>
> The pattern field contained the route string as used by Cake eg:
>
> pattern '/'
> controller 'pages'
> action 'index'
> permalink ''
>
> or
>
> pattern '/shop/food/chocolate'
> controller 'sections'
> action 'view'
> permalink 'chocolate'
>
> or
>
> pattern '/shop/food/chocolate/:permalink'
> controller 'products'
> action 'view'
> permalink NULL (which would use the :permalink in the URL I believe)
>
> I'm thinking that this would work if I added a flag indicating if the
> row was related to a shop section so that extra processing could be
> done in the routes.php file to add /section-name/:permalink to
> redirect to product->view(). The routes.php file I managed like so:
>
> foreach (ClassRegistry::init('Routes')->find('all', array('order' =>
> 'LENGTH(`pattern`) DESC')) as $data) {
> extract($data['Routes']);
>
> // set up the route
> Router::connect(
> $pattern,
> array(
> 'controller' => $controller,
> 'action' => $action,
> 'permalink' => $permalink
> ),
> array(
> 'pass' => array(
> 'permalink'
> )
> )
> );
>
> but it feels a bit too 'hacky' and I'd like to check first that
> there's no other way to address the issue.
>
> Another way I've thought to try is to create a routing 'controller'
> that parses the url but if I were to redirect all requests to that
> controller, would it be easy enough, or even good practice, to call
> another controller and it's action from within the main routing class.
> It all feels wrong!
>
> I wouldn't mind rewriting the router also, which is another thought I
> had, but again, is there a correct protocol to follow before undoing
> all the good work done thus far?
>
> If anyone has any suggestions, resources or even encouragement, it
> would all be very much appreciated!
>
> Apologies if I've missed an existing discussion or if my rambling is
> too incomprehensible!
Wanting to be able to create (as an admin user) a specific url for
some content seems 'normal' but wanting to make the entire routing
system work that way is likely to make things way too slow.
For one off pages, you'd just call Router::connect for them before
your other routes (probably via aftersave -> save routes to a file,
begining of routes.php check for your admin-created routes file).
For the general case why not consider something like:
Router::connect('/pages/*', array('controller' => 'pages', 'action' =>
'display'));
(
Router::connect('/products/:id/*', array('controller' => 'products',
'action' => 'view')); // append whatever slug/seo fluff you like
OR
Router::connect('/p/*', array('controller' => 'products', 'action' =>
'view')); // append whatever slug/seo fluff you like - last one being
the product slug
)
(
Router::connect('/category/:id/*', array('controller' => 'category',
'action' => 'view')); // append whatever slug/seo fluff you like
OR
Router::connect('/c/*', array('controller' => 'category', 'action' =>
'view')); // append whatever slug/seo fluff you like - last one being
the category slug
)
IMO the key to mastering/having simple routes is to always have
something fixed ('e.g. /p/') in the route to make matches easy find/
debug/etc. . Making Routes themselves db dependent is a recipe for
slowness and general disaster ( what happens if the db goes
offline? ).
hth,
AD
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