How to make pHP routing

Learn to create a simple PHP routing system with an example in this easy-to-follow article.

PHP Routing

Routing is the system used by web applications to decide how to respond to a request. It is a process of mapping a URL path to a set of instructions that tell the application what action to take. The purpose of routing is to keep URLs clean and structured, and to allow applications to respond to requests in an organized manner.

In PHP, routing can be implemented using the $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] variable. This variable contains the path of the current URL. By using this variable, we can parse the URL and decide which action to take based on the URL structure.

For example, let's say we want to create a simple blog application with a URL structure like this: /posts/{post_id}. We can use the following code to parse the URL and decide which action to take:

$uri_components = explode('/', $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);

if ($uri_components[1] == 'posts') {
  // fetch the post ID from the URL
  $post_id = $uri_components[2];
  
  // fetch the post from the database
  $post = fetch_post($post_id);
  
  // render the post page
  render_post_page($post);
}

In this example, we are using the explode() function to split the URL into components. We then check to see if the first component is posts, indicating that the user is trying to view a post. If so, we extract the post ID from the URL and then use it to fetch the post from the database. Finally, we render the post page using the render_post_page() function.

This is a very simple example of how routing works in PHP. By using the $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] variable, we can parse the URL and decide which action to take based on the URL structure. This allows us to keep URLs clean and organized, and to respond to requests in an organized manner.