Routing configuration and controller action parameters for simple URL redirector

Question

I am trying to make a simple redirector controller in CakePHP. I'd like the URL to be of the form:

http://example.com/redirector/&lt;numeric id>/<url to redirect to>

For example,

http://example.com/redirector/1/http://www.google.com

The URL that I need to redirect could be more complex, of course, including slashes, parameters and anchors.

I can't seem to be able to figure out how to write the route configuration so that my action would look something like:

class RedirectsController extends AppController {

    function myredirectaction($id, $url) {
        $this->autoRender = false;
        $this->redirect($url);
    }

It seems like whatever I try, the "/"'s in the url-to-redirect-to confuses my route attempt and splits the URL into pieces, and this no longer matches my action definition. What should I do?

I am new to PHP and CakePHP, so any advice you can give is appreciated.

Update:

So instead of the example URL above, it has been URL-escaped to look like this:

http://example.com/redirector/1/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com

However, my routing is still not working. Here's what I have in routes.php:

Router::connect(
 '/redirector/:id/:url',
 array('controller' => 'redirects', 'action' => 'myredirectaction'),
 array(
  'id' => '[0-9]+',
  'url' => 'http.*'
 )
);

This is what I get when I try that URL:

Warning (2): array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #1 is not an array [CORE/cake/dispatcher.php, line 301]

Code | Context

$fromUrl    = "redirector/1/http://www.google.com"
$params = array(
    "pass" => array(),
    "named" => array(),
    "id" => "1",
    "url" => "http://www.google.com",
    "plugin" => null,
    "controller" => "redirects",
    "action" => "myredirectaction",
    "form" => array()
)
$namedExpressions   = array(
    "Action" => "index|show|add|create|edit|update|remove|del|delete|view|item",
    "Year" => "[12][0-9]{3}",
    "Month" => "0[1-9]|1[012]",
    "Day" => "0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01]",
    "ID" => "[0-9]+",
    "UUID" => "[A-Fa-f0-9]{8}-[A-Fa-f0-9]{4}-[A-Fa-f0-9]{4}-[A-Fa-f0-9]{4}-[A-Fa-f0-9]{12}"
)
$Action = "index|show|add|create|edit|update|remove|del|delete|view|item"
$Year   = "[12][0-9]{3}"
$Month  = "0[1-9]|1[012]"
$Day    = "0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01]"
$ID = "[0-9]+"
$UUID   = "[A-Fa-f0-9]{8}-[A-Fa-f0-9]{4}-[A-Fa-f0-9]{4}-[A-Fa-f0-9]{4}-[A-Fa-f0-9]{12}"
$url    = array(
    "url" => "/redirector/1/http://www.google.com"
)

array_merge - [internal], line ??
Dispatcher::parseParams() - CORE/cake/dispatcher.php, line 301
Dispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/cake/dispatcher.php, line 118
[main] - APP/webroot/index.php, line 88

And more warnings from my action since it did not get the two expected arguments.

Of course, I've changed my action to urldecode($url) before using the $url.

Answer 1

To place slashes and other special characters, use their ACSII codes instead. For a list of the codes and their respective characters, refer to this documentation:

http://www.ascii.cl/htmlcodes.htm

Answer 2

You need to add a pass array to pass the variables to your action.

Router::connect(
        '/redirector/:id/:url',
        array('controller' => 'redirects', 'action' => 'myredirectaction'),
        array(
                'id' => '[0-9]+',
                'url' => 'http.*',
                'pass' => array('id', 'url')
        )
);

You can find additional information about why here: http://book.cakephp.org/view/543/Passing-parameters-to-action

Answer 3

I can't seem to make this work with the URL like I was originally hoping for. The best I have been able to do is to supply the URL to redirect to in the parameters. So routing becomes simply:

Router::connect(
        '/redirector',
        array('controller' => 'redirects', 'action' => 'myredirectaction')
);

And the controller action becomes (error handling omitted):

function myredirectaction() {
    $this->autoRender = false;
    $redirect_url = $this->params['url']['theurl'];
    $this->redirect($redirect_url);
}

And the URL is of the form:

http://example.com/redirector?theid=1&theurl=http://www.google.com