Url Component

Url Component

Overview

Phalcon\Url is the component responsible of generate URLs in a Phalcon application. It can also be used to construct URLs based on routes.

<?php
use Phalcon\Url;
$url = new Url();
$url->setBaseUri("/portal/");
echo $url->get("invoices/edit/1"); // /portal/invoices/edit/1 
echo $url->get(
    [
        "for"   => "invoices-edit", // route name
        "title" => "Edit Invoice",  // title
        "id"    => 1,               // route parameter
    ]                             
);

Generation

The Phalcon\Url component can generate URLs that are static as well as dynamic ones. Dynamic URLs can be generated also based on parameters or routes of your application, as defined using the [Router][routing] component.

Static URLs

Static URLs are the ones that refer to static resources. Those can be images, CSS/JS assets, videos etc. The Phalcon\Url component offers an easy way to generate those URLs.

<?php
use Phalcon\Url;
$url = new Url();
echo $url->getStatic("img/logo.png");

Along with getStatic(), the component also offers the getter getStaticBaseUri() and setter setStaticBaseUri() methods, which allow you to set a prefix for all of your static URLs. This functionality can be especially helpful when you need to set up a CDN or a different location on where your assets are stored.

<?php
use Phalcon\Url;
$url = new Url();
$this->setStaticBaseUri('https://assets.phalcon.io/');
echo $url->getStaticBaseUri(); // https://assets.phalcon.io/

and when in need to use a CDN for your production environment:

<?php
use Phalcon\Url;
$url = new Url();
if ($environment === 'production') {
    $this->setStaticBaseUri('https://assets.phalcon.io/');
}
echo $url->getStatic('img/logo.png'); // https://assets.phalcon.io/img/logo.png

The above code will prefix all the static assets with https://assets.phalcon.io, ensuring that assets in your production environment use the CDN URL, while local development loads them directly from your machine.

The trailing slash in the setStaticBaseUrl() parameter is optional. If it is not specified, it will automatically be appended to the passed parameter

Finally, depending on the routes you have specified, you can retrieve a static resource which is defined in a named route by passing an array to getStatic() and using for keyword as a key and the name of the route as a value.

<?php
use Phalcon\Url;
$url = new Url();
echo $url->getStatic(
    [
        'for' => 'logo-cdn',
    ]
);

URLs

URLs are URLs that are generated dynamically i.e. based on the routes or URLs of your application. The Phalcon\Url component offers an easy way to generate those URLs.

Depending of which directory of your document root your application is installed, it may have a base URI or not. For example, if your document root is /var/www/htdocs and your application is installed in /var/www/htdocs/app then your baseUri will be /app/. If you are using a VirtualHost or your application is installed on the document root, then your base URI is /.

If you are unsure and want to find out what your base URI is, you can execute the following code in your application’s folder:

<?php
use Phalcon\Url;
$url = new Url();
echo $url->getBaseUri();

By default, Phalcon will try to detect your base URI. It is recommended that you specify the base URI yourself,m because it increases performance slightly.

<?php
use Phalcon\Url;
$url = new Url();
echo $url->get("/portal/invoices/edit/1");

Along with get(), the component also offers the getter getBaseUri() and setter setBaseUri() methods, which allow you to set a prefix for all of your URLs. This functionality can be especially helpful when you need to set up a prefix for your URLs i.e. if you are working with modules that have a specific prefix for all routes.

<?php
use Phalcon\Url;
$url = new Url();
$this->setBaseUri('/portal/');
echo $url->getBaseUri(); // /portal/
echo $url->get('invoices/edit/1'); // /portal/invoices/edit/1

The above code will prefix all the URLs with /portal/, allowing you to group URLs easier. For instance if you have the InvoicesController and you want the URLs to be prefixed with /portal/, you can use setBaseUri() in the initialize() method:

<?php
use Phalcon\Url;
use Phalcon\Mvc\Controller
/**
 * @property Url $url
 */
class InvoicesController extends Controller
{
    public function initialize()
    {
        $this->url->setBaseUri('/portal/');
    }
}

And now we can generate any URL using get() in subsequent actions, that will be prefixed with /portal/

The trailing slash in the setBaseUrl() parameter is optional. If it is not specified, it will automatically be appended to the passed parameter

Routing

If you are using the Router with its default behavior, your application is able to match routes based on the following pattern:

/:controller/:action/:params

Therefore, it is easy to create routes that satisfy that pattern (or any other pattern defined in the router) passing a string to the method get():

<?php echo $url->get('products/save'); ?>

Note that is not necessary to prepend the base URI. If you have named routes you can easily define it dynamically. For instance for the following route:

<?php
use Phalcon\Mvc\Router;
$router = new Router();
$router
    ->add(
        '/portal/invoices/edit/{id}',
        [
            'module'     => 'portal',
            'controller' => 'invoices',
            'action'     => 'edit',
        ]
    )
    ->setName('invoices-edit');

You can now generate a URL which is defined in the invoice-edit named route, by passing an array to get() and using for keyword as a key and the name of the route as a value.

<?php
use Phalcon\Url;
$url = new Url();
echo $url->get(
    [
        'for' => 'invoices-edit',
        'id'  => 1,
    ]
);

The above will produce /portal/invoices/edit/1.

mod_rewrite

Developers that are utilizing mod_rewrite in their Apache installations, Phalcon\Url offers the necessary functionality to replace mod_rewrite. This is especially useful if the target system does not have the module installed or you cannot install it yourself.

The following example shows you how to replace mod_rewrite with Phalcon\Url:

<?php
use Phalcon\Url;
$url = new Url();
$url->setBaseUri('/app/public/index.php?_url=/'); // $_GET['_url']
echo $url->get('products/save'); // /app/public/index.php?_url=/portal/invoices/save

You can also use $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']. This requires a bit more work, since we need to utilize the Router component to populate the $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']. Our routes setup needs to change to:

<?php
use Phalcon\Mvc\Router;
$router = new Router();
// ... Define routes
$uri = str_replace($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'], '', $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);
$router->handle($uri);

and now the application can process the URI as expected:

<?php
use Phalcon\Url;
$url = new Url();
$url->setBaseUri('/app/public/index.php'); // $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']
echo $url->get('products/save'); // /app/public/index.php/portal/invoices/save

If you can, avoid replacing mod_rewrite with the code above. Having the necessary route matching mechanism handled by the web server is much faster than handling things in your own application.

View/Volt

The function url is available in volt to generate URLs using this component:


<a href='{{ url('invoices/edit/1') }}'>Edit</a>

Generate static routes:


<link rel='stylesheet' href='{{ static_url('css/style.css') }}' type='text/css' />

Path

Although a path is not really a URL, the Phalcon\Url offers methods that allow you to create paths for your application, the same way as URLs.

<?php
use Phalcon\Url;
$url = new Url();
echo $url->path("/data/app/storage/");

Along with path(), the component also offers the getter getBasePath() and setter setBasePath() methods, which allow you to set a prefix for all of your paths.

<?php
use Phalcon\Url;
$url = new Url();
$this->setBasePath('/data/app/');
echo $url->getBasePath(); // /data/app/
echo $url->path('storage/config.php'); // /data/app/storage/config.php

The above code will prefix all the paths with /data/app/.

The trailing slash in the setBasePath() parameter is optional. If it is not specified, it will automatically be appended to the passed parameter

Exceptions

Any exceptions thrown in the Phalcon\Url component will be of type Phalcon\Url\Exception. You can use this exception to selectively catch exceptions thrown only from this component.

<?php
use Phalcon\Url\Exception;
use Phalcon\Mvc\Controller;
class IndexController extends Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        try {
            // Get some configuration values
            $this->url->get('/portal/invoices/list');
        } catch (Exception $ex) {
            echo $ex->getMessage();
        }
    }
}

Custom

The [Phalcon\UrlInterface][url-interface] is available if you wish to implement your own Url component. Implementing this interface will ensure that your custom component will work with the Phalcon.

Dependency Injection

If you use the Phalcon\Di\FactoryDefault container, the Phalcon\Url is already registered for you. However you might want to override the default registration in order to set your own setBaseUri(). Alternatively if you are not using the Phalcon\Di\FactoryDefault and instead are using the Phalcon\Di the registration is the same. By doing so, you will be able to access your configuration object from controllers, models, views and any component that implements Injectable.

An example of the registration of the service as well as accessing it is below:

<?php
use Phalcon\Di\FactoryDefault;
use Phalcon\Url;
// Create a container
$container = new FactoryDefault();
$container->set(
    'url',
    function () {
        $url = new Url();
        $url->setBaseUri('/portal/');
        return $url;
    },
    true
);

The component is now available in your controllers using the url key

<?php
use Phalcon\Mvc\Controller;
use Phalcon\Url;
/**
 * @property Url $url
 */
class MyController extends Controller
{
    private function getUrl(): string
    {
        return $this->url->get('/portal/invoices/link');
    }
}

Also in your views (Volt syntax) the url helper method offers the same functionality:

{{ url('/portal/invoices/link') }}

You can of course access the object the same way as any registered service in the Di container:

{{ url.get('/portal/invoices/link') }}