Laravel 4. default controller route wont accept arguments - php

Question

I have a RESTful controller for my users to handle the viewing of a users profile.
The problem is this:
I want the url to look like this www.example.com/user/1
This would show the user with the id of 1. The problem is that when i define the getIndex method in the UserController it wont accept the id as an argument.
Here is my routes.php portion:
Route::controller('user', 'UserController');
Now, it is my understanding that getIndex is sort of the default route if nothing else is supplied in the url, and so this:
public function getIndex() {
}
within the UserController will accept routes,
"www.example.com/user/index"
and
"www.example.com/user"
and it does!
However, if I include an argument that it should take from the url, it no longer works:
public function getIndex($id) {
//retrieve user info for user with $id
}
This will only respond to
"www.example.com/user/index/1"
and not
"www.example.com/user/1"
How can i make the latter work? I really do not want to clutter up the url with the word "index" if it is not necessary.

Answer 1

If you are planning to do this, the best way is to use RESTful controllers.
Change your route to this one,
Route::resource('user', 'UserController');
Then generate a controller using php artisan command,
php artisan controller:make UserController
This will generate your controller with all RESTful functions,
<?php
class UserController extends \BaseController {
/**
* Display a listing of the resource.
*
* #return Response
*/
public function index() // url - GET /user (see all users)
{
//
}
/**
* Show the form for creating a new resource.
*
* #return Response
*/
public function create()
{
//
}
/**
* Store a newly created resource in storage.
*
* #return Response
*/
public function store() // url - POST /user (save new user)
{
//
}
/**
* Display the specified resource.
*
* #param int $id
* #return Response
*/
public function show($id) // url - GET /user/1 (edit the specific user)
{
//
}
/**
* Show the form for editing the specified resource.
*
* #param int $id
* #return Response
*/
public function edit($id)
{
//
}
/**
* Update the specified resource in storage.
*
* #param int $id
* #return Response
*/
public function update($id) // url - PUT /user/1 (update specific user)
{
//
}
/**
* Remove the specified resource from storage.
*
* #param int $id
* #return Response
*/
public function destroy($id) // url - DELETE /user/1 (delete specific user)
{
//
}
}
For more info, see this one Laravel RESTful controller parameters

Answer 2

To display www.example.com/user/1 on address bar you should use show method. In Laravel, restful controller by default create 7 routes. Show is one of them.
in your controller create a method like the following:
public function show($id)
{
// do something with id
$user = User::find($id);
dd($user);
}
Now, Browse http://example.com/user/1.