cakephp - Change route if it starts with a certain string/character

Question

I have this in routes.php:

$builder
    ->connect( '/a/*', [ "controller" => "Api", "action" => "foo" ] )
    ->setHost("domain.world");

This works perfectly for URLs like this https://domain.world/a/5nxdy9lmcthc. I fail when I want to enable different routes depending on the first character(s) in the URL.

For example these different action targets:

• a* --> aAction
• b* --> bdAction
• c* --> cbAction ...

It works now with the / but for some reasons I would like to omit the / so the URL would be https://domain.world/a5nxdy9lmcthc or https://domain.world/b5nxdy9lmcthc and this would trigger different actions because of the a and b as first characters after the /.

My question:

Is it possible or is the slash needed in order to use to *?

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65915623/change-route-if-it-starts-with-a-certain-string-character

Answer 1

The greedy star (*) and the trailing star (**) are path segment operators, they will match the rest of the path segments, they do not match parts of a segment, so yes, a slash is required.

You can use regular expressions for custom route elements to achieve what you're looking for:

$builder
    ->connect('/{key}', ['controller' => 'Api', 'action' => 'aAction'])
    ->setPatterns(['key' => 'a[a-z0-9]+'])
    ->setPass(['key'])
    ->setHost('domain.world');

$builder
    ->connect('/{key}', ['controller' => 'Api', 'action' => 'bAction'])
    ->setPatterns(['key' => 'b[a-z0-9]+'])
    ->setPass(['key'])
    ->setHost('domain.world');

$builder
    ->connect('/{key}', ['controller' => 'Api', 'action' => 'cAction'])
    ->setPatterns(['key' => 'c[a-z0-9]+'])
    ->setPass(['key'])
    ->setHost('domain.world');

See also

• Cookbook > Routing > Connecting Routes
• Cookbook > Routing > Connecting Routes > Route Elements