Use automatic controller routes in Laravel is a bad idea

Question

I'm coming From CodeIgniter to Laravel.

So, is a bad idea using automatic routes to all of controllers?

Route::controller(Controller::detect());

Should I use this instead creating routes in routes.php?

Answer 1

Yes this is bad.

Controller::detect() is actually not present in Laravel 4 because it is a bit broken.

detect() will go through your filesystem and return controller files, but this is a bad idea because the order you define your routes matters. If you have any nested controllers you will find this breaking very easily.

detect() will also return files in a different order depending on the file system, so this leads to a lot of unpredictability.

I would argue that you should define all your routes any ways, it is a lot easier to read and debug.

Answer 2

One of interesting things about Laravel that CI does not have is that for certain pages, you can route directly to the view without needing a controller at all. Think about static pages like 'About Us'. CodeIgniter would need you to set up a controller + view for that, even though the controller will do barely anything. In case of Laravel, you can route directly to a view in this case.

Setting up routes manually will allow you to set these short-circuited routes.