Route to redirect to a controller + an action by default on CodeIgniter?

Question

I'm currently working on a project with Codeigniter.

I have one controller called Cat

class Cat extends CI_Controller {

    function __construct(){
        parent::__construct();
    }

    function index($action){
        // code here
    }

}

and a route (in routes.php)

$route['cats/:any'] = 'cat/index/$1';

And that works if I use this URL for example: http://www.mywebsite.com/cats/display

Nevertheless, if the user changes the URL to http://www.mywebsite.com/cats/ it doesn't work anymore. Codeigniter writes: 404 Page Not Found - The page you requested was not found.

So my goal is to redirect him to http://www.mywebsite.com/cats/display by default if he is on the cats/ page

Do I need to do another route? I tried

$route['cats'] = 'cat/display';

...but without success. Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

There are a few ways to do this:

You could provide $action with 'display' by default:

function index($action = 'display'){}

OR

You could have a condition to physically redirect them

function index($action = ''){
   if(empty($action)){redirect('/cats/display');}
   //OTher Code
}

OR

You need to provide routes for when there is nothing there:

$route['cats'] = 'cat/index/display'; //OR the next one
$route['cats'] = 'cat/index'; //This requires an function similar to the second option above

Also, if you are only having a specific number of options in you route (ie. 'display', 'edit', 'new'), it might be worth setting up your route like this:

$route['cats/([display|edit|new]+)'] = 'cat/index/$1';

Edit:

The last route you created:

$route['cats'] = 'cat/display';

is actually looking for function display() in the controller rather than passing index the 'display' option

Answer 2

best way to use _remap function in your controller it will remap your url to specific method of controller

class Cat extends CI_Controller {

    function __construct(){
        parent::__construct();
    }

    function _remap($action)
    {
       switch ($action)
       {
            case 'display':
             $this->display();
            break;
            default:
               $this->index();
            break;
        }
    }

    function index($action){
        // code here
    }

    function display(){
        echo "i will display";
    }
    }

check remap in CI user guide