Routing

Routing

HTTP verb methods

Each supported method has a dedicated helper. They all share the signature (string $path, $handler, array $options = []) and return the router for chaining.

$router->get('/',             $handler);
$router->post('/login',       $handler);
$router->put('/users/{id}',   $handler);
$router->patch('/users/{id}', $handler);
$router->delete('/users/{id}', $handler);
$router->options('/users',    $handler);
$router->head('/health',      $handler);
$router->any('/webhook',      $handler); // matches every HTTP method

$handler may be a closure, a Controller@method string, or an array — see Controllers.

register() and add()

register() (aliased as add()) registers a route for one or more methods. The methods can be an array or a |-separated string:

$router->register(['GET', 'POST'], '/search', $handler);
$router->add('GET|POST', '/search', $handler);

Supported methods: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, HEAD, PATCH, OPTIONS, ANY, LINK. An unsupported method throws InvalidArgumentException.

The fluent API

Most registration methods return $this, so calls chain — including the modifiers name(), filter()/middleware() and pattern()/where():

$router->get('/articles/{id}', 'ArticleController@show')
    ->where('id', '[0-9]+')
    ->name('articles.show')
    ->middleware(AuthMiddleware::class);

name(), filter() and middleware() apply to the most recently registered route.

How matching works

When resolving a request, the candidate routes are the routes registered for the request method, plus all ANY routes, plus all LINK routes (see Static File Links). When several routes match the same URL, the most specific one wins — longer paths and more captured parameters rank higher.

dispatch() performs this resolution and runs the matched route; resolve(string $method, string $url) returns the matched Route object (or null) without running it.

Inspecting registered routes

getRoutes() returns the registered routes as plain arrays:

$all  = $router->getRoutes();      // grouped by HTTP method
$gets = $router->getRoutes('GET'); // only GET routes, keyed by path

Next: Route Parameters.