How to add slug and ID URL to Laravel 4 Route?

Question

I would like to add nice Slug URL to my Laravbel Project. I currently am using ID numbers.

My goal is to continue using Numbers but also to use Slugs for better SEO URL's. So either a Slug or an ID will load the proper page.

Below is my current Route that uses an ID number to load a record.

// View Campaign Details/Profile/Map View
Route::any("/campaign/{id}", array(
    "as"   => "campaign/{id}",
    "uses" => "CampaignController@getCampaignMap"
));

To be able to add Slug support in Laravel 4. I believe I need to add a slug database column to my campaigns table.

How would I go about editing my Route to work with an ID number of a slug string?

Also since I am only wanting to use slug on a couple sections of my application, how would I do my.htaccess for this, or is an.htaccess even required?

Answer 1

I wouldn't pass two parameters to your function, just treat it like an ID in both cases. You'll need to add a "slug" column to your db if you haven't already and make sure those values are unique just like an id. Then in your controller you can do something like this:

public function getCampaignMap($id){
    //look for the campaign by id first
    $campaignmap  = Campaign::find($id);
    //if none is found try to find it by slug instead
    if(!$campaignmap){
        $campaignmap = Campaign::where('slug','=',$id)->firstOrFail();
    }
    return View::make('campaignmap.show', compact('campaignmap'));
}

You could also save yourself a query in some cases by checking to see if the id is numeric and then just look for it by slug if it's not numeric such as:

public function getCampaignMap($id){
    //look for the campaign by id if it's numeric and by slug if not
    if(is_numeric($id)){
         $campaignmap  = Campaign::find($id);
    }else{
         $campaignmap = Campaign::where('slug','=',$id)->firstOrFail();
    }
    return View::make('campaignmap.show', compact('campaignmap'));
}

Answer 2

There is already a popular package that handle slugs and its possible issues: https://github.com/cviebrock/eloquent-sluggable

It can handle uniqueness adding an id suffix to previously used slugs, detect if you want to overwrite soft-deleted slugs, and some other customs configs.