URL Generation
Introduction
Laravel provides several helpers to assist you in generating URLs for your application. Of course, these are mainly helpful when building links in your templates and API responses, or when generating redirect responses to another part of your application.
The Basics
Generating Basic URLs
The url
helper may be used to generate arbitrary URLs for your application. The generated URL will automatically use the scheme (HTTP or HTTPS) and host from the current request:
$post = App\Post::find(1);
echo url("/posts/{$post->id}");
// http://example.com/posts/1
Accessing The Current URL
If no path is provided to the url
helper, a Illuminate\Routing\UrlGenerator
instance is returned, allowing you to access information about the current URL:
// Get the current URL without the query string...
echo url()->current();
// Get the current URL including the query string...
echo url()->full();
// Get the full URL for the previous request...
echo url()->previous();
Each of these methods may also be accessed via the URL
facade:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\URL;
echo URL::current();
URLs For Named Routes
The route
helper may be used to generate URLs to named routes. Named routes allow you to generate URLs without being coupled to the actual URL defined on the route. Therefore, if the route's URL changes, no changes need to be made to your route
function calls. For example, imagine your application contains a route defined like the following:
Route::get('/post/{post}', function () {
//
})->name('post.show');
To generate a URL to this route, you may use the route
helper like so:
echo route('post.show', ['post' => 1]);
// http://example.com/post/1
You will often be generating URLs using the primary key of Eloquent models. For this reason, you may pass Eloquent models as parameter values. The route
helper will automatically extract the model's primary key:
echo route('post.show', ['post' => $post]);
Signed URLs
Laravel allows you to easily create "signed" URLs to named routes. These URLs have a "signature" hash appended to the query string which allows Laravel to verify that the URL has not been modified since it was created. Signed URLs are especially useful for routes that are publicly accessible yet need a layer of protection against URL manipulation.
For example, you might use signed URLs to implement a public "unsubscribe" link that is emailed to your customers. To create a signed URL to a named route, use the signedRoute
method of the URL
facade:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\URL;
return URL::signedRoute('unsubscribe', ['user' => 1]);
If you would like to generate a temporary signed route URL that expires, you may use the temporarySignedRoute
method:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\URL;
return URL::temporarySignedRoute(
'unsubscribe', now()->addMinutes(30), ['user' => 1]
);
Validating Signed Route Requests
To verify that an incoming request has a valid signature, you should call the hasValidSignature
method on the incoming Request
:
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
Route::get('/unsubscribe/{user}', function (Request $request) {
if (! $request->hasValidSignature()) {
abort(401);
}
// ...
})->name('unsubscribe');
Alternatively, you may assign the Illuminate\Routing\Middleware\ValidateSignature
middleware to the route. If it is not already present, you should assign this middleware a key in your HTTP kernel's routeMiddleware
array:
/**
* The application's route middleware.
*
* These middleware may be assigned to groups or used individually.
*
* @var array
*/
protected $routeMiddleware = [
'signed' => \Illuminate\Routing\Middleware\ValidateSignature::class,
];
Once you have registered the middleware in your kernel, you may attach it to a route. If the incoming request does not have a valid signature, the middleware will automatically return a 403
error response:
Route::post('/unsubscribe/{user}', function (Request $request) {
// ...
})->name('unsubscribe')->middleware('signed');
URLs For Controller Actions
The action
function generates a URL for the given controller action. You do not need to pass the full namespace of the controller. Instead, pass the controller class name relative to the App\Http\Controllers
namespace:
$url = action('HomeController@index');
If the controller method accepts route parameters, you may pass them as the second argument to the function:
$url = action('UserController@profile', ['id' => 1]);
Default Values
For some applications, you may wish to specify request-wide default values for certain URL parameters. For example, imagine many of your routes define a {locale}
parameter:
Route::get('/{locale}/posts', function () {
//
})->name('post.index');
It is cumbersome to always pass the locale
every time you call the route
helper. So, you may use the URL::defaults
method to define a default value for this parameter that will always be applied during the current request. You may wish to call this method from a route middleware so that you have access to the current request:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Middleware;
use Closure;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\URL;
class SetDefaultLocaleForUrls
{
public function handle($request, Closure $next)
{
URL::defaults(['locale' => $request->user()->locale]);
return $next($request);
}
}
Once the default value for the locale
parameter has been set, you are no longer required to pass its value when generating URLs via the route
helper.