Variable Prefixed Routing in CakePHP

Question

I'm creating an app in CakePHP which requires me to run 'multiple' apps within one CakePHP installation. Something like I have n controllers that behave the same for all applications, but they only differ when I call the database - anyway, I need to create a route which behaves something like this:

/app1/controller/action/a/b/c

/app2/controller/action/a/b/c

(where app1 and app2 are alphanumeric strings that can change to anything)

That would be routed to something like:

/controller/action/app1/a/b/c

(or the same for app2, and so on)

The routed route could be just /controller/action/a/b/c too, but I need to have a way to access the app1 / app2 parts of the URL within the controller (for further processing within the controller). Is there a way to do this in CakePHP? Thanks.

Slightly related question: When the above is accomplished, is there a way to set a 'default' app-name (like when I attempt to access /controller/action/a/b/c it will automatically be routed to the equivalent of typing /global/controller/action/a/b/c?)

Thanks!

Effectively: What I want is just to use Routing (or any other CakePHP 'method' that can do this) to handle URLs like /foobar/controller/action/the/rest to /controller/action/the/rest and pass "foobar" to the controller, somehow. "Foobar" is any alphanumeric string.

Doug Owings Doug Owings · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-13T05:00:46

In app/Config/routes.php add:

Router::connect( 
    '/:app/:controller/:action/*', 
    array(), 
    array( 'pass' => array( 'app' ))
);

This will pass the value of app as the first argument to the action in your controller. So in your controller you would do something like:

class FoosController Extends AppController {
    public function view_something($app, $a, $b, $c) { 
        // ...
    }
}

When you request /myApp1/foos/view_something/1/2/3 the value of $app would be 'myApp1', the value of $a would be 1, etc.

To connect other routes, before the above, you can add something like:

Router::connect(
    '/pages/:action/*',
    array( 'app' => 'global', 'controller' => 'pages' ),
    array( 'pass' => array( 'app' )) // to make app 1st arg in controller
);

Variable Prefixed Routing in CakePHP

2 Answers