Zend2 Routing __NAMESPACE__ doesn't work or be ignored - php

Question

I'm using this config as my application module config in Zend2 which is really normal and every one suggested as a standard routing rule:
'controllers' => array(
'invokables' => array(
'Application\Controller\Index' => 'Application\Controller\IndexController',
),
),
'router' => array(
'routes' => array(
'home' => array(
'type' => 'Zend\Mvc\Router\Http\Literal',
'options' => array(
'route' => '/',
'defaults' => array(
'controller' => 'Application\Controller\Index',
'action' => 'index',
),
),
),
'application' => array(
'type' => 'Zend\Mvc\Router\Http\Literal',
'options' => array(
'route' => '/application',
'defaults' => array(
'__NAMESPACE__' => 'Application\Controller',
'controller' => 'Index',
'action' => 'index',
),
),
'may_terminate' => true,
'child_routes' => array(
'default' => array(
'type' => 'Zend\Mvc\Router\Http\Segment',
'options' => array(
'route' => '/[:controller[/:action]]',
'constraints' => array(
'controller' => '[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_-]*',
'action' => '[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_-]*',
),
'defaults' => array(
),
),
),
),
),
),
),
the routing for home works fine. but for http://localhost/application I get:
Index(resolves to invalid controller class or alias: Index)
and for http://localhost/application/index/index I get:
index(resolves to invalid controller class or alias: index)
if I change this:
'application' => array(
'type' => 'Zend\Mvc\Router\Http\Literal',
'options' => array(
'route' => '/application',
'defaults' => array(
'__NAMESPACE__' => 'Application\Controller',
'controller' => 'Index',
'action' => 'index',
),
),
to this:
'application' => array(
'type' => 'Zend\Mvc\Router\Http\Literal',
'options' => array(
'route' => '/application',
'defaults' => array(
'controller' => 'Application\Controller\Index',
'action' => 'index',
),
),
As you know definitely for http://localhost/application it will work fine like home url
if I use this:
'controllers' => array(
'invokables' => array(
'index' => 'Application\Controller\IndexController',
),
),
as you know the configurations will merge and I should have just one index controller in the project.
Why the line '__NAMESPACE__' => 'Application\Controller', be ignored and it looks for just Index or index in the controllers array which no exist??
EDIT:
With comparing to other projects I added this to Application/Module.php :
public function onBootstrap(MvcEvent $e)
{
$eventManager = $e->getApplication()->getEventManager();
$moduleRouteListener = new ModuleRouteListener();
$moduleRouteListener->attach($eventManager);
}
and it works now but I need and explanation. is it the solution? I mean should I add this to one of Module.php files in the project to make routing rules work fine? and why without it the __NAMESPACE__ will be ignored in routing rules?

Answer 1

You already found the solution, adding the ModuleRouteListener is the right thing to do. The explanation can be found in the description of the onRoute method inside this listener:
Listen to the "route" event and determine if the module namespace should be prepended to the controller name.
If the route match contains a parameter key matching the MODULE_NAMESPACE constant, that value will be prepended, with a namespace separator, to the matched controller parameter.