Routing

How routing works
The routes file
Namespaced routes
Fixed controllers and methods
Current route details

How routing works

Lima keeps routing deliberately simple. Requests are sent to your public index.php file, Lima reads the url query parameter, and the router maps that URL to a controller method.

For example, a request to:

/blog/view/15

will look for a Blog controller, call the view method, and pass 15 as the first method parameter.

class Blog extends \Lima\Core\Controller
{
    public function view($id): void
    {
        $this->view('blog/view', [
            'id' => $id,
        ]);
    }
}

Lima also converts hyphenated controller names to class style names. A URL like /user-profile maps to a UserProfile controller, while hyphenated method names are converted to underscores. A URL like /account/reset-password maps to reset_password.

The routes file

Routes are registered in system/routes.php. This file should define a $routes array.

<?php

$routes = [
    '*' => ['namespace' => 'App\Controllers'],
];

The wildcard route is the most common starting point. It tells Lima which namespace to use when matching normal controller requests.

Namespaced routes

You can also register a named route prefix. This is useful when your application has a section of controllers that should live under a different namespace.

$routes = [
    'admin' => ['namespace' => 'App\Controllers\Admin'],
    '*' => ['namespace' => 'App\Controllers'],
];

With this route in place, /admin/users/edit/4 will resolve inside the admin namespace and pass 4 through as a parameter.

Fixed controllers and methods

A route can define a controller and method directly. This is useful for landing pages, dashboards, or sections where you want the URL to stay friendly without mirroring the class name.

$routes = [
    'dashboard' => [
        'namespace' => 'App\Controllers',
        'controller' => 'Account',
        'method' => 'dashboard',
    ],
];

Now /dashboard will call Account::dashboard().

Custom 404 pages

You can define a custom 404 route using the 404 key.

$routes = [
    '404' => [
        'namespace' => 'App\Controllers',
        'controller' => 'Errors',
        'method' => 'notFound',
    ],
    '*' => ['namespace' => 'App\Controllers'],
];

If Lima cannot find a controller or method, it will set the response code to 404 and call the route above. If no custom 404 route is available, Lima will output a simple 404 Not Found response.

Current route details

The router stores the current controller and method after a request has been matched.

use Lima\Routing\Router;

$router = Router::Instance();

$controller = $router->getCurrentController();
$method = $router->getCurrentMethod();

This is mostly useful in shared layout code, navigation, or debugging tools where you need to know what part of the application is currently being handled.

What to read next

Once you have routing in place, read Controllers and Views to see how requests render templates, or Configuration if your folders don't match the default structure.

The Docs