How to replace underscores in codeigniter url with dashes?

Question

I would like to know the simplest solution to changing the underscores of my codeigniter urls to dashes, for seo reasons.

My controllers look like:

public function request_guide() {
...Load view etc...
}

So to browse to this page I would have to go to:

www.domain.com/request_guide

But I want to be more seo friendly and use dashes instead of underscores, like so:

www.domain.com/request-guide

I am under the impression that codeigniter functions require underscores (might be wrong).

In previous projects I have simply used mod_rewrite but I believe that these actions can be performed using routes.

What is the easiest way for me to rewrite the urls replacing the underscores with dashes???

Answer 1

It really depends on your intention. If you just want to change only one page, then devrooms' solution is the perfect one indeed:

$route['request-guide'] = "request_guide";

But if you want to make this your website's default behavior you should extend your core Router class like this (source: [Using hyphens instead of underscores in CodeIgniter])

1. Make a new file in 'application/core' and name it 'MY_Router.php'

2. Insert this code in it:
   

   <?php
   
   defined('BASEPATH') || exit('No direct script access allowed');
   
   class MY_Router extends CI_Router {
   
       function _set_request ($seg = array())
       {
           // The str_replace() below goes through all our segments
           // and replaces the hyphens with underscores making it
           // possible to use hyphens in controllers, folder names and
           // function names
           parent::_set_request(str_replace('-', '_', $seg));
       }
   
   }
   
   ?>
   

UPDATE (Oct 26, 2015): There's a better way to do this in CodeIgniter 3, as @Thomas Wood mentioned:

$route['translate_uri_dashes'] = TRUE;

Answer 2

The routes config found in

config/routes.php

is your friend here.

A simple

$route['request-guide'] = "request_guide" ;

will do this for you.