Dynamic first URI segment?

[eluser]NateL[/eluser]
I'm trying to wrap my head around how I would make the first and second segments of a URI dynamic.

For instance: example.com/*clientname*

my client goes to a designated section of my site that I dynamically set up via an Admin control panel.

To take it a step further: example.com/clientname/*projectname*

So, now we have the segment 1 looking for the name of the client, and segment 2 looking for a project related to that client.

I'm reading over the documentation, and I'm thinking it has something to do with URI Wildcards.

*thinking...thinking*

Thanks

[eluser]bigtony[/eluser]
If if doesn't have to be the first and second segments you can do it by creating a contoller called 'Clients' and using the _remap method to capture the client name, etc.

Code:

function _remap($clientname, $projectname) {
    // Validate client & project names (e.g. by database calls)
    ....
    // Do stuff... (e.g. call other methods as appropriate)
}

The url for the client is then: example.com/clients/clientname/projectname

If you have to use the first & second segments you could try using the config/routes.php file to 'silently' call a controller using something like:

Code:

$route['(:any)/(:any)'] = "controller_name/$1/$2";

Not sure if above will work as is, you might need to experiment.

[eluser]Michael Wales[/eluser]
You will create a controller/method to handle this - let's just say the user has already logged in and the url example.com/walesmd/codeigniter will take me to my dashboard which is found at Projects->index(). You would establish the following route:

Code:

$route['[(a-zA-Z0-9-)+]/[(a-zA-Z0-9-)+]'] = 'projects/index/$1/$2';

Which will direct the request to:

Code:

class Projects extends Controller {
  function index($username, $project) {
  }
}

Now, the only thing you have to worry about is your non-dynamic URIs. Let's say you have an about page at example.com/about that points to Pages->about(). The previous routing rule will instead send that request to Projects->index('about') - not what we want. So, for all of your non-dynamic routes you will need to create a routing rule as well, higher in the list than the dynamic route:

Code:

// This list should go from most specific to least specific, as top rules take precedence.
$route['about'] = 'pages/about';
$route['[(a-zA-Z0-9-)+]/[(a-zA-Z0-9-)+]'] = 'projects/index/$1/$2';
$route['[(a-zA-Z0-9-)+]'] = 'users/settings/$1';

[eluser]NateL[/eluser]
Thanks guys, it makes sense.

I was curious about non-dynamic URLs, the main one being example.com/admin - so thanks for mentioning that.

[eluser]NateL[/eluser]
SWEET!

It's working!

I need to touch up on my Regular Expression skillz, but your regex didn't work for me. I copied what was in the user guide, but now it only works with lowercase letters.

$route['([a-z]+)/([a-z]+)'] = 'projects/index/$1/$2';
$route['([a-z]+)'] = 'client/index/$1';

example.com/client/project will pull up all of the files for that project
example.com/client will pull up all of the projects for that client

nifty This is SO much better than the way I did it before....yeh, I programmed PHP to create physical directories, and copy an index.php file in there (yikes...)

[eluser]NateL[/eluser]
Oh - I figured it out. Your brackets and parenthesis are swapped and in the wrong place.

fixed:

Code:

$route['([a-zA-Z0-9-]+)/([a-zA-Z0-9-]+)'] = 'projects/index/$1/$2';
$route['([a-zA-Z0-9-]+)'] = 'client/index/$1';

[eluser]NateL[/eluser]
Another question about this...

Is it possible to tell CI that if you're looking in the Admin directory - NOT to follow that regular expression?

example.com/admin - I use $route['admin'] = "admin/admin/index";

the problem I just ran into was if I browse to example.com/admin/addressbook, my routing rule was not set right and it looked for the client "admin" and the project "addressbook"

I want to tell CI that ANYthing after admin/ is not to be searched as client/project

If I go to admin/foobar - and foobar isn't an existing controller, an error is thrown.

[eluser]NateL[/eluser]
woot!!

Got it

$route['admin/(:any)'] = "admin/$1";