Generating URLs and Paths

Phalcon\Mvc\Url is the component responsible of generate urls in a Phalcon application. It’s capable of produce independent urls based on routes.

Setting a base URI

Dependending 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/invo then your baseUri will be /invo/. If you are using a VirtualHost or your application is installed on the document root, then your baseUri is /. Execute the following code to know the base uri detected by Phalcon:

<?php

$url = new Phalcon\Mvc\Url();
echo $url->getBaseUri();

By default, Phalcon automatically may detect your baseUri, but if you want to increase the performance of your application is recommended setting up it manually:

<?php

$url = new Phalcon\Mvc\Url();

//Setting a relative base URI
$url->setBaseUri('/invo/');

//Setting a full domain as base URI
$url->setBaseUri('//my.domain.com/');

//Setting a full domain as base URI
$url->setBaseUri('http://my.domain.com/my-app/');

Usually, this component must be registered in the Dependency Injector container, so you can set up it there:

<?php

$di->set('url', function(){
    $url = new Phalcon\Mvc\Url();
    $url->setBaseUri('/invo/');
    return $url;
});

Generating URIs

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. Accordingly 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 isn’t necessary to prepend the base uri. If you have named routes you can easily change it creating it dynamically. For Example if you have the following route:

<?php

$route->add('/blog/{$year}/{month}/{title}', array(
    'controller' => 'posts',
    'action' => 'show'
))->setName('show-post');

A URL can be generated in the following way:

<?php

//This produces: /blog/2012/01/some-blog-post
$url->get(array(
    'for' => 'show-post',
    'year' => 2012,
    'month' => '01',
    'title' => 'some-blog-post'
));

Producing URLs without Mod-Rewrite

You can use this component also to create urls without mod-rewrite:

<?php

$url = new Phalcon\Mvc\Url();

//Pass the URI in $_GET["_url"]
$url->setBaseUri('/invo/index.php?_url=/');

//This produce: /invo/index.php?_url=/products/save
echo $url->get("products/save");

You can also use $_SERVER[“REQUEST_URI”]:

<?php

$url = new Phalcon\Mvc\Url();

//Pass the URI in $_GET["_url"]
$url->setBaseUri('/invo/index.php?_url=/');

//Pass the URI using $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"]
$url->setBaseUri('/invo/index.php/');

In this case, it’s necessary to manually handle the required URI in the Router:

<?php

$router = new Phalcon\Mvc\Router();

// ... define routes

$uri = str_replace($_SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"], '', $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"]);
$router->handle($uri);

The produced routes would look like:

<?php

//This produce: /invo/index.php/products/save
echo $url->get("products/save");

Producing URLs from Volt

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

<a href="{{ url("posts/edit/1002") }}">Edit</a>

Implementing your own Url Generator

The Phalcon\Mvc\UrlInterface interface must be implemented to create your own URL generator replacing the one provided by Phalcon.