NAME
Mojo::Manual::Mojolicious - Mojolicious
ROUTES
Routes allow you to map urls to controller classes and methods. If you are already familiar with Ruby on Rails you will notice almost similar behavior.
Terms
There are a couple of terms to know. Url refers to a request path. Map is the rule that matches a given path. Route is the path to a class and method to be called with additional parameters. It is possible to convert a Map to a Route and to convert a Route to a Url.
Simple route
Let's look at the example.
# /articles
$r->route('/articles')->to(controller => 'article', action => 'list');When a user requests /articles, the module Article.pm is loaded and the method list will be called. controller and action values are important, because they decide what is going to be called if a url matches the given map.
Additional parameters
Besides controller and action you can define as many parameters as you like.
# /articles (sort_by = 'date')
$r->route('/articles')
->to(controller => 'article, action => 'list', sort_by => 'date');Placeholders
Maps can be more specific and automatically provide parameters through placeholders.
# /*
$r->route('/:controller')->to(action => 'list');The colon means that controller will be automatically captured and passed along.
Default values
You can specify default values for all parameters.
# /* (id = 1)
# /*/*
$r->route('/:controller/:id')->to(action => 'view', id => 1);The value for id will be 1 if it's not specified.
Constraints
Parameters can also have constraints.
# /articles/5
$r->route('/articles/:id', id => qr/\d+/)
->to(controller => 'article', action => 'view');This will only match if id is a number. There is no need to specify ^ and $, because they are automatically added.
Optional parameters
Values are required if no default value was given. You can also just set default values to undef to make them entirely optional.
# /archive
# /archive/2008
$r->route('/archive/:year')
->to(controller => 'archive', action => 'list', year => undef);Nested routes
Don't repeat yourself. For a given root map you can have multiple nested maps. This can be used to factor out repetitive code.
# /books/5/edit
# /books/5/delete
my $b = $r->route('/books/:id')->to(controller => 'book');
$b->route('/edit')->to(action => 'edit');
$b->route('/delete')->to(action => 'delete');Bridges
Sometimes it is neccessary to call multiple method after another (e.g. authorization, data processing). That's what bridge is for.
# /blog
$r->bridge->to(controller => 'foo', action =>'auth')
->route('/blog')->to(action => 'list');Foo::auth will be called before Foo::list.
Waypoints
Waypoint is something in between bridges and nested routes. It can match even if it's not an endpoint, but will behave just like route if children are matching too.
# /books
my $b = $r->waypoint('/books')->to(controller => 'books', action => 'list');
# /books/1
$b->route('/:id', id => qr/\d+/)->to(action => 'view');Quoted symbols
It is not only possible to catch parameters from slash to slash, you can also quote them with parentheses for more advanced matching.
# /view-5
# /delete-1
$r->route('/:(action)-:(id)')->to(controller => 'album');