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Symfony2 – Franz Jordán 2011
Adding HTTP Method Requirements
In addition to the URL, you can also match on the method of the incoming request (i.e. GET,
HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE). Suppose you have a contact form with two controllers - one for
displaying the form (on a GET request) and one for processing the form when it's submitted (on
a POST request). This can be accomplished with the following route configuration:
contact:
pattern: /contact
defaults: { _controller: AcmeDemoBundle:Main:contact }
requirements:
_method: GET
contact_process:
pattern: /contact
defaults: { _controller: AcmeDemoBundle:Main:contactProcess }
requirements:
_method: POST
Despite the fact that these two routes have identical patterns (/contact), the first route will
match only GET requests and the second route will match only POST requests. This means that
you can display the form and submit the form via the same URL, while using distinct controllers
for the two actions.
If no _method requirement is specified, the route will match on all methods.
Like the other requirements, the _method requirement is parsed as a regular expression. To
matchGET or POST requests, you can use GET|POST.
Advanced Routing Example
At this point, you have everything you need to create a powerful routing structure in Symfony.
The following is an example of just how flexible the routing system can be:
article_show:
pattern: /articles/{culture}/{year}/{title}.{_format}
defaults: { _controller: AcmeDemoBundle:Article:show, _format: html }
requirements:
culture: en|fr
_format: html|rss
year: \d+
As you've seen, this route will only match if the {culture} portion of the URL is
either en or fr and if the {year} is a number. This route also shows how you can use a period
between placeholders instead of a slash. URLs matching this route might look like:
/articles/en/2010/my-post
/articles/fr/2010/my-post.rss
The Special _format Routing Parameter
This example also highlights the special _format routing parameter. When using this
parameter, the matched value becomes the "request format" of the Requestobject. Ultimately,
the request format is used for such things such as setting theContent-Type of the response
(e.g. a json request format translates into aContent-Type of application/json). It can
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