Laravel routing - two url addresses with similar names - php

Question

I'm doing forum with Laravel.
I decides to have routes like this:
Route::get('/{topicName}', 'ForumController#showTopic');
Route::get('/{postSubject}', 'ForumController#showPost');
I have also another routes, but this two are on the bottom, because, when I write sth in URL (and laravel doesn't find passing address) then everything fall into this routes (especially the first one). I don't know how to programm this to work this two last routes.
When someone add my Topic name, then he's going on the site:
http:/forum/php
or
http:/forum/javaScript
Then user see all posts to this Topic. But when user want to see one specific post, then I want to be in url like this:
http:/forum/post_subject_name
And now user can see specific post.
How to do this, because now everything fall to my first controller - ForumController#showTopic'). Is this possible?

Answer 1

You can't, both those routes have the same requirement, if they are at the bottom of your routes, the topicName one will always take priority.
You should have routes such as
Route::get('/topics/{topicName}', 'ForumController#showTopic');
Route::get('/posts/{postSubject}', 'ForumController#showPost');
That way you can distinguish between them

Answer 2

Problem is that both routes consist of one parameter and nothing else. How is it supposed to know if the given parameter is a topic name or a post subject?
However, what you could do is having one route and do the rest in the controller method:
Route::get('/{topicOrPost}', 'ForumController#showTopicOrPost');
public function showTopicOrPost($topicOrPost)
{
$topic = Topic::where('name', $topicOrPost)->first();
if ($topic !== null) {
// show the topic
} else {
$post = Post::where('subject', $topicOrPost)->first();
if ($post !== null) {
// show the post
} else {
// neither topic or post found
}
}
}
But then, of course, you'd have to ensure that there aren't topic and post with the same name/subject.

Answer 3

in my opinion you could use pattern in route
Regular Expression Constraints
some example :
// This is what you might have right now
Route::get('users/{id}', 'UserController#getProfile')->where('id', '[\d+]+');
Route::get('products/{id}', 'ProductController#getProfile')->where('id', '[\d+]+');
Route::get('articles/{slug}', 'ArticleController#getFull')->where('slug', '[a-z0-9-]+');
Route::get('faq/{slug}', 'FaqController#getQuestion')->where('slug', '[a-z0-9-]+');
// and many more, now imagine you'll have to change the rule
// Instead, you could have a handy list of patterns and reuse them everywhere:
// Patterns
Route::pattern('id', '\d+');
Route::pattern('hash', '[a-z0-9]+');
Route::pattern('hex', '[a-f0-9]+');
Route::pattern('uuid', '[0-9a-f]{8}-[0-9a-f]{4}-[0-9a-f]{4}-[0-9a-f]{4}-[0-9a-f]{12}');
Route::pattern('base', '[a-zA-Z0-9]+');
Route::pattern('slug', '[a-z0-9-]+');
Route
::pattern('username', '[a-z0-9_-]{3,16}');
and for you I think you could use something like this:
Route::get('/{any}','SearchController#showPost')->where('any','^[post_]+$');
Route::get('/{any}','SearchController#showTopic');
but you have to use ShowTopic route after showpost