CakePHP 2.x Custom PagesController & Routing

Question

I want to direct all requests that haven't got a valid controller action to my custom page controller.

I.e. I want /pages/new & /users/login etc to work correctly, but a request for /foo or /foo/bar should be directed to /pages/display/$path.

The following code works, but I'm pretty certain I'm not doing something the right way(tm).

// In app/Config/routes.php
Router::connect('/', array('controller' => 'pages', 'action' => 'displayHome'));
$controllerList = App::objects('controller');
foreach ($controllerList as $controller) {
 $contstr = substr($controller, 0, strlen($controller)-10);
 $contstr = Inflector::tableize($contstr);
 if($contstr != 'app') {
 Router::connect('/'. $contstr, array('controller'=>$contstr));
 Router::connect('/'. $contstr .'/:action', array('controller'=>$contstr));
 Router::connect('/'. $contstr .'/:action/*', array('controller'=>$contstr));
 // FIXME: Check if admin routing is set
 Router::connect('/admin/'. $contstr, array('controller'=>$contstr, 'admin'=>true));
 Router::connect('/admin/'. $contstr .'/:action', array('controller'=>$contstr, 'admin'=>true));
 Router::connect('/admin/'. $contstr .'/:action/*', array('controller'=>$contstr, 'admin'=>true));
 }
}
Router::connect('/**', array('controller'=>'pages', 'action'=>'display'));

Would someone please be able to review this and tell me if this is okay/horribly wrong?

Answer 1

Use a pattern

The general principle is fine, though it won't handle plugin routes (which I assume isn't a problem)

However instead of a loop (and therefore defining 6 routes per controller) a parameter for the controller name can be used which will be more concise and likely overall more performant. The code could be rewritten like this:

// Define a home route
Router::connect('/', array('controller' => 'pages', 'action' => 'displayHome'));
// Generate a regex-like controller name pattern (e.g. "posts|comments|users")
$controllerList = App::objects('controller');
$controllerList = array_map(function($c) {
 return Inflector::underscore(substr($c, 0, strlen($c)-10);
}, $controllerList));
$controllerList = array_filter($controllerList, function ($c) {
 return $c !== 'app'
});
$controller = implode('|', $controllerList);
// Define normal routes
$params = array('controller' => $controller);
Router::connect('/:controller', $params);
Router::connect('/:controller/:action', $params);
Router::connect('/:controller/:action/*', $params);
// Define admin routes
$params += array('admin' => true, 'prefix' => 'admin');
Router::connect('/admin/:controller', $params);
Router::connect('/admin/:controller/:action', $params);
Router::connect('/admin/:controller/:action/*', $params);
// Define catchall
Router::connect('/**', array('controller'=>'pages', 'action'=>'display'));

In this way there are 8 routes in total, no matter how many controllers there are in the application.