[Proposal] Set Route segment patterns globally

[JoostK]

With the recent addition of Router binding (a great feature!) we can now automatically bind models for a certain parameter name.

In my routes however, I always use secondary keys to retrieve models, because then the URL makes sense to users. Many times this key consists of multiple columns, so I need multiple segments to specify them.

It would be nice to also be able to specify a pattern for a parameter name globally on the Router instance. Then we specify the pattern of the parameter once and be good to go for all of them.

Route::pattern('user', '[^/]/[^/]');

Route::get('users/{user}', ['as' => 'user', function(User $user){  }]);
Route::get('users/{user}/edit', ['as' => 'user.edit', function(User $user){  }]);

For both routes the parameter pattern has now been set. This is the most general form. Even nicer would be to just be able to alias a variable:

Route::segments('user', ['firstname', 'lastname']);
// {user} in routes will now be handled as {firstname}/{lastname}, but it is only
// passed as a single input parameter (as an array) to the route (and binding hook)

This sort of 'combines' multiple segments into one parameter, and also allows for generating a url like this:

URL::route('user', ['firstname' => $user->firstname, 'lastname' => $user->lastname]);

This basically aliases multiple segments into one parameter. It may be a bit tricky to implement but it adds a lot of flexibility to the new route binding.

[jasonlewis]

It sounds nice in theory. I like the pattern definitions. 👍 for that.

[tlgreg]

I personally liked @cmenke's idea at illuminate/routing#10, it is clear if something is actually a wildcard or not and new ones could be added just like in L3.

[cmenke]

I retracted my PR back then, because I hadn't figured out how to test for exceptions properly.
I do like the idea of defining patterns, though – and it should be only a minor addition to my original PR.

I could imagine a few default patterns to be availble (like :num, :any and :all, as in L3) and the ability to add custom ones using the proposed syntax.

Route::pattern('name', '[^/]/[^/]'));

// applies pre-defined pattern 'num' => '\d+'
Route::get('foo/{id:num}', function($id) { return $id });

// applies user-defined pattern 'name' => '[^/]/[^/]'
Route::get('users/{user:name}', ['as' => 'user', function(User $user){  }]);

If there's interest I could give it another shot later this week!

[taylorotwell]

I'm pretty cool with this idea in general. We already have a lot going on in the routing, so we'll have to take a look at if we can implement it efficiently.

[JoostK]

There you go, easier than I expected actually.

I never noticed there is so much going on in the router component, but indeed, it's quite large (and awesome 👍)

[taylorotwell]

I think this is a little over complicated. Choosing not to implement at the moment.

[Anahkiasen]

That's too bad, I liked the idea. What did you think was overcomplicated about it ?

[JoostK]

Global patterns are merged in, just not the segmenting. I agree that it's complicated and hard to follow. See #252 for another syntax.