Routing: Catch-all

[telephone]

I feel a sub-section within routing should be devoted to displaying the correct way to provide a catch-all... Fat-Free doesn't provide a direct method for catch-all, so it may confuse new users. It's also one of the first things I do within a project to provide custom logic instead of a default 405.

Now personally I have two ways of achieving this, but I figured I'd ask everyone else to see if you guys have your own ways.

Method 1:

// known routes should be added before catch-all...

$f3->route('GET|HEAD|POST /*/*', function($f3) {
    //
    // add custom logic here....
    //

    // call F3 error handler for cases not matching custom logic
    $f3->error(405);
});

In my tests, "//" proved to work but I didn't use a full test suite with edge cases, so I'm unsure if it provides true catch-all support.
Using "//" also infers that a method has already caught all single parameter routes. E.g. /@action. With this said the wildcard may need to be at a proportional depth compared with existing routes.

Method 2:

I'm going to be lazy here, but it involves adding a custom error handler to catch 405 errors... I'll just provide an example from my error handler:

\Error::instance()->addHandler(405, function() use($f3) {
    // custom logic
    if (!$f3->get('AJAX') && in_array($f3->get('VERB'), array('GET', 'HEAD', 'POST'))) {
        $f3->reroute('/');
    }

    // call default F3 error handler (will pass on 405 error)
    call_user_func_array(array($f3, 'error'), $f3->get('ERROR'));
});

That's about it. Let me know your thoughts, or if you have an alternative method (we can pick which one is best suited) :)

[xfra35]

In the first method, isn't a single wildcard enough? => GET|HEAD|POST /*

[telephone]

In the first method, isn't a single wildcard enough? => GET|HEAD|POST /*

No, as the single wildcard will take precedence over any single level routes.

E.g.

$f3->route('GET|HEAD|POST /', 'Home->controller');
$f3->route('GET|HEAD|POST /@action', 'Home->@action');

// wildcard will take precedence over the two routes above
$f3->route('GET|HEAD|POST /*', 'Home->catchAll');

[xfra35]

You're right. I didn't expect that behaviour. I wonder if it is intended or if it is a bug..

[xfra35]

Well the doc says:

An important point to consider: You will get Fat-Free (and yourself) confused if you have both GET /brew/@count and GET /brew/* together in the same application. Use one or the other.

[Microgamer]

On my sites I use something like this
users/new
/users/@nickname
Both as GET and it works very well.
I like it like it is.