Creating routing rule in Codeigniter

What is Routing?

Routing is a pattern matching process that captures incoming requests and decides what to do.

In CodeIgniter, you can create your own routing rules in the routes.php file located under project_folder/application/config/routes.php. By default, the routes.php file contains the following code.

<?php defined('BASEPATH') OR exit('No direct script access allowed'); $route['default_controller'] = 'welcome'; 
$route['404_override'] = ''; 
$route['translate_uri_dashes'] = FALSE;

The current controller set in routes.php is the welcome controller. When you try to access your site from http://localhost/yoursite, this rule works by default and control will be passed to welcome controller.

Creating a new routing rule

In routes.php file, modify the default_controller route as:

$route['default_controller'] = 'PublicController';

Whenever you visit the URL http://localhost/yoursite, this routing works.

Using Wildcards

In CodeIgniter, you are allowed to use the following wildcards:

• :num –  Segment containing only numbers will be matched.
• :any – Segment containing only characters will be matched.

Using these wildcards allows you to have URLs with more than one segments.

Example

$route['(:any)'] = 'PublicController/index/$1';

This will be invoked when you visit url like http://localhost/yoursite/contact

Now, your routes.php will look similar to this:

<?php
defined('BASEPATH') OR exit('No direct script access allowed');
$route['default_controller'] = 'PublicController';
$route['(:any)'] = 'PublicController/index/$1';
$route['404_override'] = '';
$route['translate_uri_dashes'] = FALSE;

Here, PublicController is the controller and index is the controller method. If you try to navigate to http://localhost/yoursite an error message will be thrown as there is no controller named PublicController. So, you need to create a controller first. Next article is about creating a new controller in CodeIgniter.

DOWNLOAD SOURCE CODE

Download the complete project and refer the following files:

• cisite/application/config/routes.php
• cisite/application/controllers/PublicController.php
• cisite/application/views/public/index.php