PHP Framwork that does Named URLs? (other than Zend Framework)

Question

I really like the named URLs in the Django Framework, and was wondering which of the PHP Frameworks supported such a thing. (I believe Zend Framework does, but please exclude that from your answers, without explanation).

For instance, in Django I can name a path like "/items/###" as "item-detail-page", which would point to a View 'function' that accepts a product ID as a parameter.

Later, I could reference the address to the Item Detail Page by creating a link (via a helper function) to 'item-detail-page 123' or similar. That way, I can change my URL structure later, should I ever need to, without ever changing the references or links in my HTML templates.

Does such a thing already exist in CodeIgniter, CakePHP, etc?

Django users: I know, this post does not contain the correct template syntax for the 'url' template tag. I was only trying to provide the general idea.

EDIT/UPDATE: I suppose this question was a bit unnecessary, as it's obvious now that all of the popular frameworks support a type of routing that works more/less like Django's does. Therefore, I feel it a bit unfair to award a single best answer, except perhaps the one that appears to come closest to matching Django's style of link-generating, since I mentioned that specifically in my question (and therefore for the benefit of others seeking the same and finding this post).

Answer 1

Kohana, which branched off of the Code Igniter framework, supports PHP5 and allows SEO friendly URLs with their URI library and Router class:

Kohana

Answer 2

Codeigniter does what you want. I've been using Codeigniter for a couple years and love it! Almost all my php projects are built on codeigniter.

Answer 3

If I understand you correctly, CakePHP can definitely do this. Routes is what you're looking for.

All route/redirect configuration is assembled in one file, routes.php. In that you set your connections like

Router::connect('/archives/*', array('controller' => 'posts', 
                                     'action' => 'archives'));

if you want to route domain.com/archives to domain.com/posts/archives.

A slightly more complex example is

Router::connect(
    '/:year/:month/:day/*',
    array('controller'=>'posts', 'action'=>'view'),
    array(
        'year' => '[12][0-9]{3}',
        'month' => '0[1-9]|1[012]',
        'day' => '0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01]'
    )
);

if you want to route domain.com/YYYY/MM/DD/post-title to domain.com/posts/view/id (the link between post-title and id is not handled in routes here).

Good luck.

Answer 4

if you want something simple and I'm mean really simple try Limonade. Anyway you can always create your own router

Answer 5

Been using CakePHP for a while now for this exact reason. Router settings will get you the types of URLs you want while keeping the MVC maintainable.

Answer 6

I would second cballou's recommendation of Kohana. It's quite ironic because at first I did use CI and just didn't like it but then I found Kohana (which is a CI fork) and it's great. The documentation is lacking a little but certainly worth the hard work.

And yes, you can do /items/apple-ipod-touch-16gb in Kohana without setting up any routing (as-per CakePHP).

Answer 7

Symfony has a routing system as well. Routing rules are configured in a configuration file (routing.yml), and your rule would look something like this:

items:
  url: /items/*
  param: { module: somemodule, action: someaction }

And like Cake, you can use the routing rule to generate a URL as well.

http://www.symfony-project.org/book/1_2/09-Links-and-the-Routing-System

Answer 8

I guess you mean you can do something like this:

(CakePHP alike pseudocode)

Router::connect('link_to_homepage', '/', array('controller' => 'foo', 'action' => 'bar');

Template:

$html->link('I want to go home!', 'link_to_homepage');

Instead of

$html->link('I want to go home!', '/');

As far as I'm aware of, such a thing doesn't exsist (yet) for CakePHP.