Symfony 2 URL Parameters? - php

Question

I am used to Yii's URL management:
site.com/controller/action/var1/value1/var2/value2
That way I can put my variables in any order in the URL or omit one and having a default value asigned:
public function actionFoo( $var1=22, $var2 ) { //Var1 is optional, Var2 must come.
}
Is there such thing in Symfony? I've searched but I found only hard-coded URL positions, like CodeIgniter, and that's something I find very annoying, because if I have a parameter in the middle of the URL I need to necessarily give it a value.
Example:
site.com/controller/action/false/false/value3
Maybe what I am used too is a bad practice, and I am open to learn other way.
Thanks

Answer 1

Symfony doesn't work that way.
If you need to map a value to a variable name then you need to use query strings: ?var1=value1&var2=value2.
Then, in your controller you can do $this->get('request')->query->get('var1', false) (false being the default value if var1 isn't set).
Otherwise you can define a default value in your route but it doesn't work the way you expect it to work.
You could extend the Routing component to mimic Yii's routing system but I wouldn't advise it because it would require some time.
All-in-all query strings will do exactly what you expect.

Answer 2

I have also found it to be a bit annoying as well, but with a little bit of work you can make the URLs work in Symfony by setting multiple routes to the same controller method. The catch is the order does matter.
This example use annotation but you could do the same thing with YAML, XML and PHP.
/**
* #Route("/whatever/{var2}/{var1}", name="whatever_allvars")
* #Route("/whatever/{var2}", name="whatever_onevar")
* #Template()
*/
public function actionFoo( $var1=22, $var2 ) {
//Var1 is optional, Var2 must come.
}
this would allow the following URLs:
site.com/whatever/var2/var1
site.com/whatever/var2
if you really want to make it match the sample URL give you could set it up like this.
/**
* #Route("/controller/action/var1/{var1}/var2/{var2}", name="whatever_allvars")
* #Route("/controller/action/var1/{var1}", name="whatever_onevar")
* #Template()
*/
public function actionFoo( $var1, $var2=22 ) {
//Var2 is optional, Var1 must come.
}
This would allow the following URLs:
site.com/controller/action/var1/value1/var2/value2
site.com/controller/action/var1/value1
Hopefully this gives you an idea what can be done in Symfony.