Laravel 5.6 - Route Model Binding with a Default Controller - php

Question

I'm building a shopping app using Laravel where each product's URL must be kept concise.
Instead of using the following permalink structure: (which is common, but unfavorable)
www.example.com/products/{product-slug}
I want to use this permalink structure:
www.example.com/{product-slug}
In order to accomplish this, I'm using an implicit route model binding in my routes file:
Route::get( '{product}', function ( App\Product $product ) {
return view( 'product' ); // this works, but is not what I want
});
And I am overriding the lookup behavior in my Product model:
class Product extends Model
{
public function getRouteKeyName()
{
return 'slug'; // use the 'product.slug' column for look ups within the database
}
}
Now, according to Laravel's documentation:
Laravel automatically resolves Eloquent models defined in routes or controller actions whose type-hinted variable names match a route segment name.
(View Source)
So I know that Laravel will match the {product} variable to a product stored within my database, or return a 404 response if one is not found.
And this all makes sense to me...
However...
Each product page is unique, so after the route matches a {product}, that {product} object needs to be passed to a controller for further processing.
So how do I pass this route to a controller, if I want to keep my implicit model binding?

Answer 1

Point the route to a controller function.
This would be your route (I named the controller ProductController and pointed it to show function, but you can rename both to your liking):
Route::get( '{product}', 'ProductController#show');
And this would be in your ProductController:
public function show(Request $request, \App\Product $product)
{
// Do stuff with $product
// Return view and pass it the $product variable
return view('product', compact('product'));
}

Answer 2

To answer my own question, I think I've found a great solution that combines my initial approach and devk's response:
Credits to Arjun's Blog for the idea.
As it turns out, you can also perform implicit model binding within a controller by passing an Eloquent model as a dependency:
/* App/Http/Controllers/ProductController.php */
/**
* Get the Product object.
*
* #param App\Models\Product
*/
public function show( Product $product )
{
return view( 'product', compact( 'product' ) );
}
Even though we are now referencing the model using a controller, Laravel will still automatically resolve the model. In fact, this behavior is clearly defined within the documentation:
Laravel automatically resolves Eloquent models defined in routes or
controller actions whose type-hinted variable names match a route
segment name.
(View Source)
I must have missed those words when I read it the first time...
Now, in order to set up the {product-slug} route (in the way I wanted to), you must set up your model and route definitions like so:
/* App/Models/Product.php */
class Product extends Model
{
/**
* Get the route key for the model.
*
* #return string
*/
public function getRouteKeyName()
{
return 'slug';
}
}
As mentioned earlier, overriding the getRouteKeyName() method will make Laravel search for a product using it's slug column in the database instead of its id column (which is the default).
/* routes/web.php */
Route::get( '{product}', 'ProductController#show' );
In our routes file, we still name our parameter {product} (instead of {product-slug}) because the name of the parameter must match the name of the Eloquent model.
Using this configuration, requests made on:
www.example.com/{product-slug}
will return a product page if the provided {product-slug} matches one stored inside the database. If a product is not found, a 404 Not Found response will be returned instead.
However, because we are binding this route to the base path /, this means that every URL requested by a client will be passed through this configuration.
To avoid this problem, make sure that your route definitions are in proper order within your routes file (from greatest to least precedence), and use validation when conflicts occur.