Creating download page - best practices - passing path from URL to controller - routes

Need Help
1

I am using CakePHP version 4.4.7 to make a download site.

I am wanting my URLs to be: https:// domain /downloads / [directory path]

[directory path] will be webroot/downloads/[directory path]

What I am trying to figure out how to do is have everything after “downloads/” in the URL be passed to my controller as a parameter.

For example, if https://domain/downloads/windows/version/2.1 was requested, my “Downloads” controller would be called with an “index” (or other) action and “windows/version/2.1” would be passed to the action.

The list of files in that directory would then presented to the user.

It seems like Routes is the way to do this, but I am having trouble getting it to work. I’m also having trouble with https://domain/downloads without a trailing ‘/’ being treated as a file in webroot rather than the controller. The trailing ‘/’ fires the controller while no trailing ‘/’ says webroot/downloads not found.

2

You should show us what you’ve tried so far in terms of routing. Otherwise, we can only guess at what you’ve got wrong.

3

Earlier we used the greedy star (/*) to capture additional path segments, there is also the trailing star (/**). Using a trailing double star, will capture the remainder of a URL as a single passed argument. This is useful when you want to use an argument that included a / in it:

$routes->connect(
‘/pages/**’,
[‘controller’ => ‘Pages’, ‘action’ => ‘show’]
);

    $routes->setRouteClass(DashedRoute::class);

    $routes->scope('/', function (RouteBuilder $builder) {
        /*
         * Here, we are connecting '/' (base path) to a controller called 'Pages',
         * its action called 'display', and we pass a param to select the view file
         * to use (in this case, templates/Pages/home.php)...
         */
        $builder->connect('/', ['controller' => 'Pages', 'action' => 'display', 'home']);

        /*
         * ...and connect the rest of 'Pages' controller's URLs.
         */
        $builder->connect('/pages/*', 'Pages::display');

        $builder->connect('/downloads/**', 'Downloads::index');
        /*
         * Connect catchall routes for all controllers.
         *
         * The `fallbacks` method is a shortcut for
         *
         * ```
         * $builder->connect('/{controller}', ['action' => 'index']);
         * $builder->connect('/{controller}/{action}/*', []);
         * ```
         *
         * You can remove these routes once you've connected the
         * routes you want in your application.
         */
         $builder->fallbacks();
4

I think I have it working. I was expecting everything following “downloads” to come as a parameter to my controller. I found what I was looking for at $this->request->getParam(‘pass’);

Though I do still have a questions about the trailing ‘/’. If the trailing ‘/’ is omitted, it tries to find the file under ‘webroot’. With the trailing ‘/’, it passes everything to the Controller.

I don’t understand the difference.