Question

I want to be able to choose a controller based on data gathered form the uri.

I have a categories table and a subcategories table. Basically I have a URL in the following format (:any)/(:any). The first wildcard is a city slug (i.e edinburgh) and the second is going to be either a category or a subcategory slug.

So in my route I search for categories with that route, if I find it, I want to use controller: forsale and method: get_category. If it’s not a category I’ll look up subcategories, if I find it in there I want to use controller: forsale and method: get_subcategory. If it’s not a subcategory I want to continue looking for other routes.

Route::get('(:any)/(:any)', array('as'=>'city_category', function($city_slug, $category_slug){
    // is it a category?
    $category = Category::where_slug($category_slug)->first();
    if($category) {    
        // redirect to controller/method
    } 

    // is it a subcategory?
    $subcategory = Subcategory::where_slug($category_slug)->first();
    if($subcategory) {
        // redirect to controller/method
    }
    // continue looking for other routes
}));

First off I’m not sure how to call a controller/method here without actually redirecting (thus changing the url again).

And secondly, is this even the best way to do this? I started using /city_slug/category_slug/subcategory_slug. But I want to only show city_slug/category|subcategory_slug but I need a way to tell which the second slug is.

Lastly, there may be other URL’s in use that follow (:any)/(:any) so I need it to be able to continue looking for other routes as well.

Answer 1

Answer to your questions in order:
1. Instead of using different controller#action‘s you could use a single action and based on the second slug (category or subcategory), render a different view (although I don’t like this approach, see #2 and #3):

public class Forsale_Controller extends Base_Controller {
  public function get_products($city, $category_slug) {
    $category = Category::where_slug($category_slug)->first();
    if($category) {    
      // Do whatever you want to do!
      return View::make('forsale.category')->with(/* pass in your data */);
    }

    $subcategory = Subcategory::where_slug($category_slug)->first();
    if($subcategory) {
      // Do whatever you want to do!
      return View::make('forsale.sub_category')->with(/* pass in your data */);
    }
  }
}

2. I think /city_slug/category_slug/subcategory_slug is way better than your method! You should go with this one!!
3. Again, you should revise your routes. I always try to make my routes in a way that they don’t confuse me, neither Laravel!! Something like /products/city/category/subcategory is much more clear!

Hope it helps (my code is more like a psudocode, it’s not been tested )!