single: Routing

Routing

Beautiful URLs are a must for any serious web application. This means leaving behind ugly URLs like index.php?article_id=57 in favor of something like /read/intro-to-symfony.

Having flexibility is even more important. What if you need to change the URL of a page from /blog to /news? How many links would you need to hunt down and update to make the change? If you're using Symfony's router, the change is simple.

single: Routing; Basics

Creating Routes

A route is a map from a URL path to a controller. Suppose you want one route that matches /blog exactly and another more dynamic route that can match any URL like /blog/my-post or /blog/all-about-symfony.

Routes can be configured in YAML, XML and PHP. All formats provide the same features and performance, so choose the one you prefer. If you choose PHP annotations, run this command once in your app to add support for them:

$ composer require annotations

Now you can configure the routes:

// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Annotation\Route;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    /**
     * Matches /blog exactly
     *
     * @Route("/blog", name="blog_list")
     */
    public function list()
    {
        // ...
    }

    /**
     * Matches /blog/*
     *
     * @Route("/blog/{slug}", name="blog_show")
     */
    public function show($slug)
    {
        // $slug will equal the dynamic part of the URL
        // e.g. at /blog/yay-routing, then $slug='yay-routing'

        // ...
    }
}

# config/routes.yaml
blog_list:
    path:     /blog
    controller: App\Controller\BlogController::list

blog_show:
    path:     /blog/{slug}
    controller: App\Controller\BlogController::show

<!-- config/routes.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<routes xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/routing"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/routing
        http://symfony.com/schema/routing/routing-1.0.xsd">

    <route id="blog_list" controller="App\Controller\BlogController::list" path="/blog" >
        <!-- settings -->
    </route>

    <route id="blog_show" controller="App\Controller\BlogController::show" path="/blog/{slug}">
        <!-- settings -->
    </route>
</routes>

// config/routes.php
use Symfony\Component\Routing\RouteCollection;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Route;
use App\Controller\BlogController;

$routes = new RouteCollection();
$routes->add('blog_list', new Route('/blog', array(
    '_controller' => [BlogController::class, 'list']
)));
$routes->add('blog_show', new Route('/blog/{slug}', array(
    '_controller' => [BlogController::class, 'show']
)));

return $routes;

Thanks to these two routes:

If the user goes to /blog, the first route is matched and list() is executed;
If the user goes to /blog/*, the second route is matched and show() is executed. Because the route path is /blog/{slug}, a $slug variable is passed to show() matching that value. For example, if the user goes to /blog/yay-routing, then $slug will equal yay-routing.

Whenever you have a {placeholder} in your route path, that portion becomes a wildcard: it matches any value. Your controller can now also have an argument called $placeholder (the wildcard and argument names must match).

Each route also has an internal name: blog_list and blog_show. These can be anything (as long as each is unique) and don't have any meaning yet. You'll use them later to generate URLs <routing-generate>.

Routing in Other Formats

The @Route above each method is called an annotation. If you'd rather configure your routes in YAML, XML or PHP, that's no problem! Create a new routing file (e.g. routes.xml) in the config/ directory and Symfony will automatically use it.

Localized Routing (i18n)

4.1 The feature to localize routes was introduced in Symfony 4.1.

Routes can be localized to provide unique paths per locale </translation/locale>. Symfony provides a handy way to declare localized routes without duplication.

// src/Controller/CompanyController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Annotation\Route;

class CompanyController extends AbstractController
{
    /**
     * @Route({
     *     "nl": "/over-ons",
     *     "en": "/about-us"
     * }, name="about_us")
     */
    public function about()
    {
        // ...
    }
}

# config/routes.yaml
about_us:
    path:
        nl: /over-ons
        en: /about-us
    controller: App\Controller\CompanyController::about

<!-- config/routes.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<routes xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/routing"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/routing
        http://symfony.com/schema/routing/routing-1.0.xsd">

    <route id="about_us" controller="App\Controller\CompanyController::about">
        <path locale="nl">/over-ons</path>
        <path locale="en">/about-us</path>
    </route>
</routes>

// config/routes.php
namespace Symfony\Component\Routing\Loader\Configurator;

return function (RoutingConfigurator $routes) {
    $routes->add('about_us', ['nl' => '/over-ons', 'en' => '/about-us'])
        ->controller('App\Controller\CompanyController::about');
};

When a localized route is matched Symfony automatically knows which locale should be used during the request. Defining routes this way also eliminated the need for duplicate registration of routes which minimizes the risk for any bugs caused by definition inconsistency.

Tip

If the application uses full language + territory locales (e.g. fr_FR, fr_BE), you can use the language part only in your routes (e.g. fr). This prevents having to define multiple paths when you want to use the same route path for locales that share the same language.

4.2 The feature to fall back on the language part only was introduced in Symfony 4.2.

A common requirement for internationalized applications is to prefix all routes with a locale. This can be done by defining a different prefix for each locale (and setting an empty prefix for your default locale if you prefer it):

# config/routes/annotations.yaml
controllers:
    resource: '../../src/Controller/'
    type: annotation
    prefix:
        en: '' # don't prefix URLs for English, the default locale
        nl: '/nl'

<!-- config/routes/annotations.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<routes xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/routing"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/routing
        http://symfony.com/schema/routing/routing-1.0.xsd">

    <import resource="../src/Controller/" type="annotation">
        <!-- don't prefix URLs for English, the default locale -->
        <prefix locale="en"></prefix>
        <prefix locale="nl">/nl</prefix>
    </import>
</routes>

// config/routes/annotations.php
use Symfony\Component\Routing\RouteCollection;

$routes = $loader->import('../src/Controller/', 'annotation');

// don't prefix URLs for English, the default locale
$app->addPrefix('/', array('_locale' => 'en'));
$app->addPrefix('/nl', array('_locale' => 'nl'));

return $routes;

Adding {wildcard} Requirements

Imagine the blog_list route will contain a paginated list of blog posts, with URLs like /blog/2 and /blog/3 for pages 2 and 3. If you change the route's path to /blog/{page}, you'll have a problem:

blog_list: /blog/{page} will match /blog/*;
blog_show: /blog/{slug} will also match /blog/*.

When two routes match the same URL, the first route that's loaded wins. Unfortunately, that means that /blog/yay-routing will match the blog_list. No good!

To fix this, add a requirement that the {page} wildcard can only match numbers (digits):

// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Annotation\Route;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    /**
     * @Route("/blog/{page}", name="blog_list", requirements={"page"="\d+"})
     */
    public function list($page)
    {
        // ...
    }

    /**
     * @Route("/blog/{slug}", name="blog_show")
     */
    public function show($slug)
    {
        // ...
    }
}

# config/routes.yaml
blog_list:
    path:      /blog/{page}
    controller: App\Controller\BlogController::list
    requirements:
        page: '\d+'

blog_show:
    # ...

<!-- config/routes.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<routes xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/routing"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/routing
        http://symfony.com/schema/routing/routing-1.0.xsd">

    <route id="blog_list" path="/blog/{page}" controller="App\Controller\BlogController::list">
        <requirement key="page">\d+</requirement>
    </route>

    <!-- ... -->
</routes>

// config/routes.php
use Symfony\Component\Routing\RouteCollection;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Route;
use App\Controller\BlogController;

$routes = new RouteCollection();
$routes->add('blog_list', new Route('/blog/{page}', array(
    '_controller' => [BlogController::class, 'list'],
), array(
    'page' => '\d+'
)));

// ...

return $routes;

The \d+ is a regular expression that matches a digit of any length. Now:

URL	Route	Parameters
`/blog/2`	`blog_list`	`$page` = `2`
`/blog/yay-routing`	`blog_show`	`$slug` = `yay-routing`

If you prefer, requirements can be inlined in each placeholder using the syntax {placeholder_name<requirements>}. This feature makes configuration more concise, but it can decrease route readability when requirements are complex:

// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Annotation\Route;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    /**
     * @Route("/blog/{page<\d+>}", name="blog_list")
     */
    public function list($page)
    {
        // ...
    }
}

# config/routes.yaml
blog_list:
    path:      /blog/{page<\d+>}
    controller: App\Controller\BlogController::list

<!-- config/routes.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<routes xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/routing"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/routing
        http://symfony.com/schema/routing/routing-1.0.xsd">

    <route id="blog_list" path="/blog/{page<\d+>}"
           controller="App\Controller\BlogController::list" />

    <!-- ... -->
</routes>

// config/routes.php
use Symfony\Component\Routing\RouteCollection;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Route;
use App\Controller\BlogController;

$routes = new RouteCollection();
$routes->add('blog_list', new Route('/blog/{page<\d+>}', array(
    '_controller' => [BlogController::class, 'list'],
)));

// ...

return $routes;

4.1 The feature to inline requirements was introduced in Symfony 4.1.

To learn about other route requirements - like HTTP method, hostname and dynamic expressions - see /routing/requirements.

Giving {placeholders} a Default Value

In the previous example, the blog_list has a path of /blog/{page}. If the user visits /blog/1, it will match. But if they visit /blog, it will not match. As soon as you add a {placeholder} to a route, it must have a value.

So how can you make blog_list once again match when the user visits /blog? By adding a default value:

// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Annotation\Route;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    /**
     * @Route("/blog/{page}", name="blog_list", requirements={"page"="\d+"})
     */
    public function list($page = 1)
    {
        // ...
    }
}

# config/routes.yaml
blog_list:
    path:      /blog/{page}
    controller: App\Controller\BlogController::list
    defaults:
        page: 1
    requirements:
        page: '\d+'

blog_show:
    # ...

<!-- config/routes.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<routes xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/routing"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/routing
        http://symfony.com/schema/routing/routing-1.0.xsd">

    <route id="blog_list" path="/blog/{page}" controller="App\Controller\BlogController::list">
        <default key="page">1</default>

        <requirement key="page">\d+</requirement>
    </route>

    <!-- ... -->
</routes>

// config/routes.php
use Symfony\Component\Routing\RouteCollection;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Route;
use App\Controller\BlogController;

$routes = new RouteCollection();
$routes->add('blog_list', new Route(
    '/blog/{page}',
    array(
        '_controller' => [BlogController::class, 'list'],
        'page'        => 1,
    ),
    array(
        'page' => '\d+'
    )
));

// ...

return $routes;

Now, when the user visits /blog, the blog_list route will match and $page will default to a value of 1.

As it happens with requirements, default values can also be inlined in each placeholder using the syntax {placeholder_name?default_value}. This feature is compatible with inlined requirements, so you can inline both in a single placeholder:

// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Annotation\Route;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    /**
     * @Route("/blog/{page<\d+>?1}", name="blog_list")
     */
    public function list($page)
    {
        // ...
    }
}

# config/routes.yaml
blog_list:
    path:      /blog/{page<\d+>?1}
    controller: App\Controller\BlogController::list

<!-- config/routes.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<routes xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/routing"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/routing
        http://symfony.com/schema/routing/routing-1.0.xsd">

    <route id="blog_list" path="/blog/{page <\d+>?1}"
           controller="App\Controller\BlogController::list" />

    <!-- ... -->
</routes>

// config/routes.php
use Symfony\Component\Routing\RouteCollection;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Route;
use App\Controller\BlogController;

$routes = new RouteCollection();
$routes->add('blog_list', new Route('/blog/{page<\d+>?1}', array(
    '_controller' => [BlogController::class, 'list'],
)));

// ...

return $routes;

Tip

To give a null default value to any placeholder, add nothing after the ? character (e.g. /blog/{page?}).

4.1 The feature to inline default values was introduced in Symfony 4.1.

Listing all of your Routes

As your app grows, you'll eventually have a lot of routes! To see them all, run:

$ php bin/console debug:router

------------------------------ -------- -------------------------------------
 Name                           Method   Path
------------------------------ -------- -------------------------------------
 app_lucky_number              ANY    /lucky/number/{max}
 ...
------------------------------ -------- -------------------------------------

single: Routing; Advanced example single: Routing; _format parameter

Advanced Routing Example

With all of this in mind, check out this advanced example:

// src/Controller/ArticleController.php

// ...
class ArticleController extends AbstractController
{
    /**
     * @Route(
     *     "/articles/{_locale}/{year}/{slug}.{_format}",
     *     defaults={"_format": "html"},
     *     requirements={
     *         "_locale": "en|fr",
     *         "_format": "html|rss",
     *         "year": "\d+"
     *     }
     * )
     */
    public function show($_locale, $year, $slug)
    {
    }
}

# config/routes.yaml
article_show:
  path:     /articles/{_locale}/{year}/{slug}.{_format}
  controller: App\Controller\ArticleController::show
  defaults:
      _format: html
  requirements:
      _locale:  en|fr
      _format:  html|rss
      year:     \d+

<!-- config/routes.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<routes xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/routing"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/routing
        http://symfony.com/schema/routing/routing-1.0.xsd">

    <route id="article_show"
        path="/articles/{_locale}/{year}/{slug}.{_format}"
        controller="App\Controller\ArticleController::show">

        <default key="_format">html</default>
        <requirement key="_locale">en|fr</requirement>
        <requirement key="_format">html|rss</requirement>
        <requirement key="year">\d+</requirement>

    </route>
</routes>

// config/routes.php
use Symfony\Component\Routing\RouteCollection;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Route;
use App\Controller\ArticleController;

$routes = new RouteCollection();
$routes->add(
    'article_show',
    new Route('/articles/{_locale}/{year}/{slug}.{_format}', array(
        '_controller' => [ArticleController::class, 'show'],
        '_format'     => 'html',
    ), array(
        '_locale' => 'en|fr',
        '_format' => 'html|rss',
        'year'    => '\d+',
    ))
);

return $routes;

As you've seen, this route will only match if the {_locale} portion of the URL is either en or fr and if the {year} is a number. This route also shows how you can use a dot between placeholders instead of a slash. URLs matching this route might look like:

/articles/en/2010/my-post
/articles/fr/2010/my-post.rss
/articles/en/2013/my-latest-post.html

The Special _format Routing Parameter

This example also highlights the special _format routing parameter. When using this parameter, the matched value becomes the "request format" of the Request object.

Ultimately, the request format is used for such things as setting the Content-Type of the response (e.g. a json request format translates into a Content-Type of application/json).

Note

Sometimes you want to make certain parts of your routes globally configurable. Symfony provides you with a way to do this by leveraging service container parameters. Read more about this in "/routing/service_container_parameters".

Special Routing Parameters

As you've seen, each routing parameter or default value is eventually available as an argument in the controller method. Additionally, there are four parameters that are special: each adds a unique piece of functionality inside your application:

_controller: As you've seen, this parameter is used to determine which controller is executed when the route is matched.
_format: Used to set the request format (read more <routing-format-param>).
_fragment: Used to set the fragment identifier, the optional last part of a URL that starts with a # character and is used to identify a portion of a document.
_locale: Used to set the locale on the request (read more <translation-locale-url>).

Redirecting URLs with Trailing Slashes

Historically, URLs have followed the UNIX convention of adding trailing slashes for directories (e.g. https://example.com/foo/) and removing them to refer to files (https://example.com/foo). Although serving different contents for both URLs is OK, nowadays it's common to treat both URLs as the same URL and redirect between them.

Symfony follows this logic to redirect between URLs with and without trailing slashes (but only for GET and HEAD requests):

Route path	If the requested URL is `/foo`	If the requested URL is `/foo/`
`/foo`	It matches (`200` status response)	It makes a `301` redirect to `/foo`
`/foo/`	It makes a `301` redirect to `/foo/`	It matches (`200` status response)

Note

If your application defines different routes for each path (/foo and /foo/) this automatic redirection doesn't take place and the right route is always matched.

4.1 The automatic 301 redirection from /foo/ to /foo was introduced in Symfony 4.1. In previous Symfony versions this results in a 404 response.

single: Routing; Controllers single: Controller; String naming format

Controller Naming Pattern

The controller value in your routes has the format CONTROLLER_CLASS::METHOD.

Tip

To refer to an action that is implemented as the __invoke() method of a controller class, you do not have to pass the method name, you can also use the fully qualified class name (e.g. App\Controller\BlogController).

single: Routing; Generating URLs

Generating URLs

The routing system can also generate URLs. In reality, routing is a bidirectional system: mapping the URL to a controller and also a route back to a URL.

To generate a URL, you need to specify the name of the route (e.g. blog_show) and any wildcards (e.g. slug = my-blog-post) used in the path for that route. With this information, an URL can be generated in a controller:

class MainController extends AbstractController
{
    public function show($slug)
    {
        // ...

        // /blog/my-blog-post
        $url = $this->generateUrl(
            'blog_show',
            array('slug' => 'my-blog-post')
        );
    }
}

If you need to generate a URL from a service, type-hint the Symfony\\Component\\Routing\\Generator\\UrlGeneratorInterface service:

// src/Service/SomeService.php

use Symfony\Component\Routing\Generator\UrlGeneratorInterface;

class SomeService
{
    private $router;

    public function __construct(UrlGeneratorInterface $router)
    {
        $this->router = $router;
    }

    public function someMethod()
    {
        $url = $this->router->generate(
            'blog_show',
            array('slug' => 'my-blog-post')
        );
        // ...
    }
}

single: Routing; Generating URLs in a template

Generating URLs with Query Strings

The generate() method takes an array of wildcard values to generate the URI. But if you pass extra ones, they will be added to the URI as a query string:

$this->router->generate('blog', array(
    'page' => 2,
    'category' => 'Symfony',
));
// /blog/2?category=Symfony

Generating Localized URLs

When a route is localized, Symfony uses by default the current request locale to generate the URL. In order to generate the URL for a different locale you must pass the _locale in the parameters array:

$this->router->generate('about_us', array(
    '_locale' => 'nl',
));
// generates: /over-ons

Generating URLs from a Template

To generate URLs inside Twig, see the templating article: templating-pages. If you also need to generate URLs in JavaScript, see /routing/generate_url_javascript.

single: Routing; Absolute URLs

Generating Absolute URLs

By default, the router will generate relative URLs (e.g. /blog). From a controller, pass UrlGeneratorInterface::ABSOLUTE_URL to the third argument of the generateUrl() method:

use Symfony\Component\Routing\Generator\UrlGeneratorInterface;

$this->generateUrl('blog_show', array('slug' => 'my-blog-post'), UrlGeneratorInterface::ABSOLUTE_URL);
// http://www.example.com/blog/my-blog-post

Note

The host that's used when generating an absolute URL is automatically detected using the current Request object. When generating absolute URLs from outside the web context (for instance in a console command) this doesn't work. See /console/request_context to learn how to solve this problem.

Troubleshooting

Here are some common errors you might see while working with routing:

Controller "App\Controller\BlogController::show()" requires that you provide a value for the "$slug" argument.

This happens when your controller method has an argument (e.g. $slug):

public function show($slug)
{
    // ..
}

But your route path does not have a {slug} wildcard (e.g. it is /blog/show). Add a {slug} to your route path: /blog/show/{slug} or give the argument a default value (i.e. $slug = null).

Some mandatory parameters are missing ("slug") to generate a URL for route "blog_show".

This means that you're trying to generate a URL to the blog_show route but you are not passing a slug value (which is required, because it has a {slug}) wildcard in the route path. To fix this, pass a slug value when generating the route:

$this->generateUrl('blog_show', array('slug' => 'slug-value'));

// or, in Twig
// {{ path('blog_show', {'slug': 'slug-value'}) }}

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routing.rst

routing.rst

Routing

Creating Routes

Localized Routing (i18n)

Adding {wildcard} Requirements

Giving {placeholders} a Default Value

Listing all of your Routes

Advanced Routing Example

Special Routing Parameters

Redirecting URLs with Trailing Slashes

Controller Naming Pattern

Generating URLs

Generating URLs with Query Strings

Generating Localized URLs

Generating URLs from a Template

Generating Absolute URLs

Troubleshooting

Keep Going!

Learn more about Routing

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routing.rst

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routing.rst

File metadata and controls

Routing

Creating Routes

Localized Routing (i18n)

Adding {wildcard} Requirements

Giving {placeholders} a Default Value

Listing all of your Routes

Advanced Routing Example

Special Routing Parameters

Redirecting URLs with Trailing Slashes

Controller Naming Pattern

Generating URLs

Generating URLs with Query Strings

Generating Localized URLs

Generating URLs from a Template

Generating Absolute URLs

Troubleshooting

Keep Going!

Learn more about Routing