How to get a slug to controller? - php

Question

I'm new in Laravel. I would like to ask, how can I find a slug in controller?
For example, my actually url is www.example.com/contact-us
I need to get a "contact-us" value in a variable in controller. Is there any simple way?
On another url, for example www.example.com/faq I need to have the value "faq" in the same variable. How can I do it? Thank you a lot
Using laravel 5.5
This is, what is in my routes file:
Route::get('/home', 'HomeController#index')->name('home');
Route::get('/podmienky-pouzitia', 'StaticController#index');
Route::get('/faq', 'StaticController#index');
Route::get('/o-projekte', 'StaticController#index');
This is, what is in my StaticController file:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Http\StaticModel;
class StaticController extends Controller
{
public function index($slug) {
var_dump($slug); // I need to get a variable with value of my actual slug
}
}

Answer 1

You can make the static page slug a parameter:
Route::get('/home', 'HomeController#index')->name('home');
Route::get('/{slug}', 'StaticController#index'); //This replaces all the individual routes
In Static controller:
public class StaticController extends Controller {
public function index($slug) {
// if the page was /faq then $slug = "faq"
}
}
However be wary that the order you declare the routes matters. Therefore you must declare all other routes before the general "catch-all" route at the end.

Answer 2

Instead of declaring several routes for each page/slug, you should just declare one route with a route parameter, so for example:
Route::get('/{slug}', 'StaticController#index');
In this case, the index method will receive the slug in $slug parameter, for example:
public function index($slug)
{
var_dump($slug);
}
So now, you can make requests using something like the following:
http://example.com/faq // for faq page
http://example.com/contact-us // for contact page
So, the $slug will now contain the faq/contact-us and so on. But, in this case, you'll have problem, for example, http://exampe.com/home will also similar to the dynamic route with slug so, if you declare the home route before the dynamic route (one with {slug}) then the StaticController#index will be invoked so either, you declare the dynamic route with slug under a parent namespace, for example:
Route::get('/static/{slug}', 'StaticController#index');
So, you can easily differentiate the routes or declare the dynamic route with slug parameter and add a where constraint in your route declaration if you have some predefined static pages with those slugs. Here is a somewhat similar answer, could be helpful. Also, check more about route constraints.
Update: You can also add a route constraint using something like the following:
Route::get('/{slug}', 'StaticController#index')->where('slug', 'faq|contact|something');
The above declaration will only match the following urls:
http://example.com/faq
http://example.com/contact
http://example.com/something

Answer 3

You can use the action() helper function to get the URL that points to a given Controller & Method.
routes.php:
Route::get('/home', 'HomeController#index')->name('home');
HomeController.php:
class HomeController extends Controller {
public function index (Request $request) {
$url = action('HomeController#index');
// $url === 'http://www.example.com/home'
// OR
$path = $request->path();
// $path === 'home';
}
}
If you use the first way, you can then use the request() helper (or the Request instance) to remove the domain from the string:
$url = str_replace(request()->root(), '', $url);