Redirecting with a query string in Laravel - php

Question

At some point in the past, my company changed our search tool and with it the format of the search query in the url.
It used to be a typical query parameter:
/product-name-some-digits-12345?q=searchterm
But now it's sent as a fragment:
/product-name-some-digits-12345##search:query=searchterm
We have a small number of visits to pages in the old format - either links out there in the ether, or users searching before the JS which powers the search has loaded. To mitigate this, I'd like to write a route to redirect from the old format to the new.
I thought I could do this by adding something like the below to the route file web.php:
Route::get('{base}?q={query}', function ($base, $query) {
// output for now, write redirect later
dd($base . '#search:query=' . $query);
})->where([
'base' => '[^\?]?',
'query' => '.*',
]);
But the route just isn't being hit.
How can I write a Laravel route to act when a query string is present?

Answer 1

I don't know how Laravel would translate that Route, but I'm also not surprised that the Route wouldn't be accessible. To debug your available routes, you can use this Artisan command:
php artisan route:list
Typically, you don't define Query String parameters directly in the Route like ?q={query}, since you really don't have to; Query Strings are implicit; they can be present on any route, but aren't required.
If you change the route to a simple Route::get('{base}'), and add a check for $request->has('q'), you should be able to handle the redirect:
Route::get('{base}', function ($base) {
if (request()->has('q')) {
return redirect()->url($base . '#search:query=' . request()->input('q'));
}
// ...
});
request() is available app-wide and can be used to check for Query String or Body/Post Parameters. The alternative is to use Injection, like:
Route::get('{base}', function (Request $request, $base){ ... });
Then use $request->has() and $request->input(), but they are syntactically the same.
Another approach would be to wrap your routes with a Middleware that checks the same thing. Syntax would be similar, in that you check for the presence of ?q=whatever via $request->has('q'), and redirect or continue as required. Documentation for that can be found here:
https://laravel.com/docs/9.x/middleware