Laravel route url with query string

Question

On laravel 4 I could generate a url with query strings using the route() helper. But on 4.1 instead of:

$url = url(\'admin.events\', array(\'lang\' => \'en\')         


        

Answer 1

Side note.

I disagree with @Steve Bauman's idea (in his answer) that one rarely needs querystring urls, and think that Laravel should at least consider adding querystring functionality (back) in. There are plenty of cases when you want a querystring url rather than a param based "pretty url". For example, a complex search filter...

example.com/search/red/large/rabid/female/bunny

...may potentially refer to the same exact set of rodents as...

example.com/search/bunny/rabid/large/female/red

...but any way you look at it (programming, marketing analytics, SEO, user-friendliness), it's kinda terrible. Even though...

example.com/search?critter=bunny&gender=female&temperament=rabid&size=large&color=red

...is longer and "uglier", it actually is better in this not-so-rare case. Net: Friendly URLs are great for some things, querystrings are great for others.

Answer to the original question...

I needed a "querystring" version of url() -- so I copied the function, modified it, and stuck it in /app/start/global.php:

/**
 * Generate a querystring url for the application.
 *
 * Assumes that you want a URL with a querystring rather than route params
 * (which is what the default url() helper does)
 *
 * @param  string  $path
 * @param  mixed   $qs
 * @param  bool    $secure
 * @return string
 */
function qs_url($path = null, $qs = array(), $secure = null)
{
    $url = app('url')->to($path, $secure);
    if (count($qs)){

        foreach($qs as $key => $value){
            $qs[$key] = sprintf('%s=%s',$key, urlencode($value));
        }
        $url = sprintf('%s?%s', $url, implode('&', $qs));
    }
    return $url;
}

Example:

$url = qs_url('sign-in', array('email'=>$user->email));
//http://example.loc/sign-in?email=chris%40foobar.com

Note: It appears that the url() function is pluggable, that is, you can replace it. Look in vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Support/helpers.php: the url function is wrapped in a if ( ! function_exists('url')) conditional. But you would probably have to jump through hoops to do it (i.e. have laravel load it before its version.)

Cheers,

Chris