Question

I’ve yet not found a very simple MVC framework. How do frameworks make it possible to access a controller by just an URL? I think it has got to do with the QUERY_STRING but isn’t it suppose to have a ??

http://localhost/public/controllername

and localhost/public is located at:

C:\wamp\www\public\

which contains an index.php

Answer 1

Generally, this is done through the use of .htaccess rewrites (Apache mod_rewrite):

1. You use .htaccess rewrites to direct every query that is not a static file to your main entry point, for example index.php, assuming you use PHP as your server side language.
2. You then parse the URI from within index.php and establish some routes in your application.

Quick example:

.htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -s [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -l [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php [NC,L]

index.php file:

$uri = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$parts = explode('/', $uri);
// assuming you want /controller/action/* mapping
$controller = 'index'; // default
$action = 'index'; // default
if (isset($parts[0])) $controller = $parts[0];
if (isset($parts[1])) $action = $parts[1];
// now, you'd try to establish some logic to test wether this controller/action
// actually exists, and load it. I'll leave this up to you.

This, of course, is just a quick and rough example, but should give you an idea of how to do this.