Seo-friendly url in CodeIgniter - php

Question

I've created a filter method for filtering the products list. This is my URL:
localhost/myshop/products/filter?category=shirts&color=blue&page=1
But I want to show this way:
localhost/myshop/products/shirts/blue/1
How can I achieve it?

Answer 1

Assuming that Products::filter() is responsible for handling the request, you can rewrite the method to accept parameters in its signature. So, if the current logic is something like this:
class Products extends CI_Controller
{
public function filter()
{
// Retrieve data from GET params
$page = $this->input->get('page');
$color = $this->input->get('color');
$category = $this->input->get('category');
// Do the filtering with $category, $color and $page...
}
}
You can simply refactor it to accept parameters through URL segments:
public function filter($category, $color, $page)
{
// Do the filtering with $category, $color and $page...
}
With this in place, your current URL is:
localhost/myshop/products/filter/shirts/blue/1
We need to get rid of that extra filter/ and we're done, right? Quoting from the docs:
Typically there is a one-to-one relationship between a URL string and its corresponding controller class/method. The segments in a URI normally follow this pattern:
example.com/class/method/param1/param2
In some instances, however, you may want to remap this relationship so that a different class/method can be called instead of the one corresponding to the URL.
OK, so we need to remap the current route. You have a few options:
First, is to update your application/config/routes.php file with a new entry:
$route['products/(:any)'] = 'products/filter/$1';
It says that if a URL starts with products/, remap it to the filter method of products class.
Here you can use wildcards and regex patterns to be even more precise about the type of parameters your method accepts.
Another option is that you might want to implement a _remap() method in your controller in order to do the route remapping for you.

Answer 2

in routes.php file, you can write following line
$route['products/(:any)/(:any)/(:num)'] = 'products/filter/$1/$2/$3';
and function will be like following
public function filter($category, $color, $page)
{
echo $category.'<br>';
echo $color.'<br>';
echo $page.'<br>';
}