Routing

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When your application receives a request, it calls a controller action to generate the response. The routing configuration defines which action to run for each incoming URL. It also provides other useful features, like generating SEO-friendly URLs (e.g. /read/intro-to-symfony instead of index.php?article_id=57).

Creating Routes

Routes can be configured in YAML, XML, PHP or using attributes. All formats provide the same features and performance, so choose your favorite. Symfony recommends attributes because it's convenient to put the route and controller in the same place.

Creating Routes as Attributes

PHP attributes allow to define routes next to the code of the controllers associated to those routes. Attributes are native in PHP 8 and higher versions, so you can use them right away.

You need to add a bit of configuration to your project before using them. If your project uses Symfony Flex, this file is already created for you. Otherwise, create the following file manually:

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# config/routes/attributes.yaml
controllers:
    resource:
        path: ../../src/Controller/
        namespace: App\Controller
    type: attribute

kernel:
    resource: App\Kernel
    type: attribute

This configuration tells Symfony to look for routes defined as attributes on classes declared in the App\Controller namespace and stored in the src/Controller/ directory which follows the PSR-4 standard. The kernel can act as a controller too, which is especially useful for small applications that use Symfony as a microframework.

Suppose you want to define a route for the /blog URL in your application. To do so, create a controller class like the following:

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// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/blog', name: 'blog_list')]
    public function list(): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

This configuration defines a route called blog_list that matches when the user requests the /blog URL. When the match occurs, the application runs the list() method of the BlogController class.

Note

The query string of a URL is not considered when matching routes. In this example, URLs like /blog?foo=bar and /blog?foo=bar&bar=foo will also match the blog_list route.

Caution

If you define multiple PHP classes in the same file, Symfony only loads the routes of the first class, ignoring all the other routes.

The route name (blog_list) is not important for now, but it will be essential later when generating URLs. You only have to keep in mind that each route name must be unique in the application.

Creating Routes in YAML, XML or PHP Files

Instead of defining routes in the controller classes, you can define them in a separate YAML, XML or PHP file. The main advantage is that they don't require any extra dependency. The main drawback is that you have to work with multiple files when checking the routing of some controller action.

The following example shows how to define in YAML/XML/PHP a route called blog_list that associates the /blog URL with the list() action of the BlogController:

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# config/routes.yaml
blog_list:
    path: /blog
    # the controller value has the format 'controller_class::method_name'
    controller: App\Controller\BlogController::list

    # if the action is implemented as the __invoke() method of the
    # controller class, you can skip the '::method_name' part:
    # controller: App\Controller\BlogController

Note

By default, Symfony loads the routes defined in both YAML and PHP formats. If you define routes in XML format, you need to update the src/Kernel.php file.

Matching HTTP Methods

By default, routes match any HTTP verb (GET, POST, PUT, etc.) Use the methods option to restrict the verbs each route should respond to:

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// src/Controller/BlogApiController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class BlogApiController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/api/posts/{id}', methods: ['GET', 'HEAD'])]
    public function show(int $id): Response
    {
        // ... return a JSON response with the post
    }

    #[Route('/api/posts/{id}', methods: ['PUT'])]
    public function edit(int $id): Response
    {
        // ... edit a post
    }
}

Tip

HTML forms only support GET and POST methods. If you're calling a route with a different method from an HTML form, add a hidden field called _method with the method to use (e.g. <input type="hidden" name="_method" value="PUT">). If you create your forms with Symfony Forms this is done automatically for you when the framework.http_method_override option is true.

Matching Expressions

Use the condition option if you need some route to match based on some arbitrary matching logic:

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// src/Controller/DefaultController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class DefaultController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route(
        '/contact',
        name: 'contact',
        condition: "context.getMethod() in ['GET', 'HEAD'] and request.headers.get('User-Agent') matches '/firefox/i'",
        // expressions can also include config parameters:
        // condition: "request.headers.get('User-Agent') matches '%app.allowed_browsers%'"
    )]
    public function contact(): Response
    {
        // ...
    }

    #[Route(
        '/posts/{id}',
        name: 'post_show',
        // expressions can retrieve route parameter values using the "params" variable
        condition: "params['id'] < 1000"
    )]
    public function showPost(int $id): Response
    {
        // ... return a JSON response with the post
    }
}

The value of the condition option is an expression using any valid expression language syntax and can use any of these variables created by Symfony:

context
An instance of RequestContext, which holds the most fundamental information about the route being matched.
request
The Symfony Request object that represents the current request.
params
An array of matched route parameters for the current route.

You can also use these functions:

env(string $name)
Returns the value of a variable using Environment Variable Processors
service(string $alias)

Returns a routing condition service.

First, add the #[AsRoutingConditionService] attribute or routing.condition_service tag to the services that you want to use in route conditions:

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use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Routing\Attribute\AsRoutingConditionService;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

#[AsRoutingConditionService(alias: 'route_checker')]
class RouteChecker
{
    public function check(Request $request): bool
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Then, use the service() function to refer to that service inside conditions:

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// Controller (using an alias):
#[Route(condition: "service('route_checker').check(request)")]
// Or without alias:
#[Route(condition: "service('App\\\Service\\\RouteChecker').check(request)")]

Behind the scenes, expressions are compiled down to raw PHP. Because of this, using the condition key causes no extra overhead beyond the time it takes for the underlying PHP to execute.

Caution

Conditions are not taken into account when generating URLs (which is explained later in this article).

Debugging Routes

As your application grows, you'll eventually have a lot of routes. Symfony includes some commands to help you debug routing issues. First, the debug:router command lists all your application routes in the same order in which Symfony evaluates them:

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$ php bin/console debug:router

----------------  -------  -------  -----  --------------------------------------------
Name              Method   Scheme   Host   Path
----------------  -------  -------  -----  --------------------------------------------
homepage          ANY      ANY      ANY    /
contact           GET      ANY      ANY    /contact
contact_process   POST     ANY      ANY    /contact
article_show      ANY      ANY      ANY    /articles/{_locale}/{year}/{title}.{_format}
blog              ANY      ANY      ANY    /blog/{page}
blog_show         ANY      ANY      ANY    /blog/{slug}
----------------  -------  -------  -----  --------------------------------------------

Pass the name (or part of the name) of some route to this argument to print the route details:

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$ php bin/console debug:router app_lucky_number

+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| Property    | Value                                                   |
+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| Route Name  | app_lucky_number                                        |
| Path        | /lucky/number/{max}                                     |
| ...         | ...                                                     |
| Options     | compiler_class: Symfony\Component\Routing\RouteCompiler |
|             | utf8: true                                              |
+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------+

Tip

Use the --show-aliases option to show all available aliases for a given route.

The other command is called router:match and it shows which route will match the given URL. It's useful to find out why some URL is not executing the controller action that you expect:

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$ php bin/console router:match /lucky/number/8

  [OK] Route "app_lucky_number" matches

Route Parameters

The previous examples defined routes where the URL never changes (e.g. /blog). However, it's common to define routes where some parts are variable. For example, the URL to display some blog post will probably include the title or slug (e.g. /blog/my-first-post or /blog/all-about-symfony).

In Symfony routes, variable parts are wrapped in { }. For example, the route to display the blog post contents is defined as /blog/{slug}:

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// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    // ...

    #[Route('/blog/{slug}', name: 'blog_show')]
    public function show(string $slug): Response
    {
        // $slug will equal the dynamic part of the URL
        // e.g. at /blog/yay-routing, then $slug='yay-routing'

        // ...
    }
}

The name of the variable part ({slug} in this example) is used to create a PHP variable where that route content is stored and passed to the controller. If a user visits the /blog/my-first-post URL, Symfony executes the show() method in the BlogController class and passes a $slug = 'my-first-post' argument to the show() method.

Routes can define any number of parameters, but each of them can only be used once on each route (e.g. /blog/posts-about-{category}/page/{pageNumber}).

Parameters Validation

Imagine that your application has a blog_show route (URL: /blog/{slug}) and a blog_list route (URL: /blog/{page}). Given that route parameters accept any value, there's no way to differentiate both routes.

If the user requests /blog/my-first-post, both routes will match and Symfony will use the route which was defined first. To fix this, add some validation to the {page} parameter using the requirements option:

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// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/blog/{page}', name: 'blog_list', requirements: ['page' => '\d+'])]
    public function list(int $page): Response
    {
        // ...
    }

    #[Route('/blog/{slug}', name: 'blog_show')]
    public function show($slug): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

The requirements option defines the PHP regular expressions that route parameters must match for the entire route to match. In this example, \d+ is a regular expression that matches a digit of any length. Now:

URL Route Parameters
/blog/2 blog_list $page = 2
/blog/my-first-post blog_show $slug = my-first-post

Tip

The Requirement enum contains a collection of commonly used regular-expression constants such as digits, dates and UUIDs which can be used as route parameter requirements.

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// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Requirement\Requirement;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/blog/{page}', name: 'blog_list', requirements: ['page' => Requirement::DIGITS])]
    public function list(int $page): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Tip

Route requirements (and route paths too) can include configuration parameters, which is useful to define complex regular expressions once and reuse them in multiple routes.

Tip

Parameters also support PCRE Unicode properties, which are escape sequences that match generic character types. For example, \p{Lu} matches any uppercase character in any language, \p{Greek} matches any Greek characters, etc.

Note

When using regular expressions in route parameters, you can set the utf8 route option to true to make any . character match any UTF-8 characters instead of just a single byte.

If you prefer, requirements can be inlined in each parameter using the syntax {parameter_name<requirements>}. This feature makes configuration more concise, but it can decrease route readability when requirements are complex:

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// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/blog/{page<\d+>}', name: 'blog_list')]
    public function list(int $page): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Optional Parameters

In the previous example, the URL of blog_list is /blog/{page}. If users visit /blog/1, it will match. But if they visit /blog, it will not match. As soon as you add a parameter to a route, it must have a value.

You can make blog_list once again match when the user visits /blog by adding a default value for the {page} parameter. When using attributes, default values are defined in the arguments of the controller action. In the other configuration formats they are defined with the defaults option:

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// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/blog/{page}', name: 'blog_list', requirements: ['page' => '\d+'])]
    public function list(int $page = 1): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Now, when the user visits /blog, the blog_list route will match and $page will default to a value of 1.

Caution

You can have more than one optional parameter (e.g. /blog/{slug}/{page}), but everything after an optional parameter must be optional. For example, /{page}/blog is a valid path, but page will always be required (i.e. /blog will not match this route).

If you want to always include some default value in the generated URL (for example to force the generation of /blog/1 instead of /blog in the previous example) add the ! character before the parameter name: /blog/{!page}

As it happens with requirements, default values can also be inlined in each parameter using the syntax {parameter_name?default_value}. This feature is compatible with inlined requirements, so you can inline both in a single parameter:

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// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/blog/{page<\d+>?1}', name: 'blog_list')]
    public function list(int $page): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Tip

To give a null default value to any parameter, add nothing after the ? character (e.g. /blog/{page?}). If you do this, don't forget to update the types of the related controller arguments to allow passing null values (e.g. replace int $page by ?int $page).

Priority Parameter

Symfony evaluates routes in the order they are defined. If the path of a route matches many different patterns, it might prevent other routes from being matched. In YAML and XML you can move the route definitions up or down in the configuration file to control their priority. In routes defined as PHP attributes this is much harder to do, so you can set the optional priority parameter in those routes to control their priority:

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// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    /**
     * This route has a greedy pattern and is defined first.
     */
    #[Route('/blog/{slug}', name: 'blog_show')]
    public function show(string $slug): Response
    {
        // ...
    }

    /**
     * This route could not be matched without defining a higher priority than 0.
     */
    #[Route('/blog/list', name: 'blog_list', priority: 2)]
    public function list(): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

The priority parameter expects an integer value. Routes with higher priority are sorted before routes with lower priority. The default value when it is not defined is 0.

Parameter Conversion

A common routing need is to convert the value stored in some parameter (e.g. an integer acting as the user ID) into another value (e.g. the object that represents the user). This feature is called a "param converter".

Now, keep the previous route configuration, but change the arguments of the controller action. Instead of string $slug, add BlogPost $post:

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// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use App\Entity\BlogPost;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    // ...

    #[Route('/blog/{slug}', name: 'blog_show')]
    public function show(BlogPost $post): Response
    {
        // $post is the object whose slug matches the routing parameter

        // ...
    }
}

If your controller arguments include type-hints for objects (BlogPost in this case), the "param converter" makes a database request to find the object using the request parameters (slug in this case). If no object is found, Symfony generates a 404 response automatically.

Check out the Doctrine param conversion documentation to learn about the #[MapEntity] attribute that can be used to customize the database queries used to fetch the object from the route parameter.

Backed Enum Parameters

You can use PHP backed enumerations as route parameters because Symfony will convert them automatically to their scalar values.

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// src/Controller/OrderController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use App\Enum\OrderStatusEnum;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class OrderController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/orders/list/{status}', name: 'list_orders_by_status')]
    public function list(OrderStatusEnum $status = OrderStatusEnum::Paid): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Special Parameters

In addition to your own parameters, routes can include any of the following special parameters created by Symfony:

_controller
This parameter is used to determine which controller and action is executed when the route is matched.
_format
The matched value is used to set the "request format" of the Request object. This is used for such things as setting the Content-Type of the response (e.g. a json format translates into a Content-Type of application/json).
_fragment
Used to set the fragment identifier, which is the optional last part of a URL that starts with a # character and is used to identify a portion of a document.
_locale
Used to set the locale on the request.

You can include these attributes (except _fragment) both in individual routes and in route imports. Symfony defines some special attributes with the same name (except for the leading underscore) so you can define them easier:

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// src/Controller/ArticleController.php
namespace App\Controller;

// ...
class ArticleController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route(
        path: '/articles/{_locale}/search.{_format}',
        locale: 'en',
        format: 'html',
        requirements: [
            '_locale' => 'en|fr',
            '_format' => 'html|xml',
        ],
    )]
    public function search(): Response
    {
    }
}

Extra Parameters

In the defaults option of a route you can optionally define parameters not included in the route configuration. This is useful to pass extra arguments to the controllers of the routes:

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// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/blog/{page}', name: 'blog_index', defaults: ['page' => 1, 'title' => 'Hello world!'])]
    public function index(int $page, string $title): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Slash Characters in Route Parameters

Route parameters can contain any values except the / slash character, because that's the character used to separate the different parts of the URLs. For example, if the token value in the /share/{token} route contains a / character, this route won't match.

A possible solution is to change the parameter requirements to be more permissive:

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// src/Controller/DefaultController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class DefaultController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/share/{token}', name: 'share', requirements: ['token' => '.+'])]
    public function share($token): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Note

If the route defines several parameters and you apply this permissive regular expression to all of them, you might get unexpected results. For example, if the route definition is /share/{path}/{token} and both path and token accept /, then token will only get the last part and the rest is matched by path.

Note

If the route includes the special {_format} parameter, you shouldn't use the .+ requirement for the parameters that allow slashes. For example, if the pattern is /share/{token}.{_format} and {token} allows any character, the /share/foo/bar.json URL will consider foo/bar.json as the token and the format will be empty. This can be solved by replacing the .+ requirement by [^.]+ to allow any character except dots.

Route Aliasing

Route alias allow you to have multiple name for the same route:

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# config/routes.yaml
new_route_name:
    alias: original_route_name

In this example, both original_route_name and new_route_name routes can be used in the application and will produce the same result.

Deprecating Route Aliases

If some route alias should no longer be used (because it is outdated or you decided not to maintain it anymore), you can deprecate its definition:

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new_route_name:
    alias: original_route_name

    # this outputs the following generic deprecation message:
    # Since acme/package 1.2: The "new_route_name" route alias is deprecated. You should stop using it, as it will be removed in the future.
    deprecated:
        package: 'acme/package'
        version: '1.2'

    # you can also define a custom deprecation message (%alias_id% placeholder is available)
    deprecated:
        package: 'acme/package'
        version: '1.2'
        message: 'The "%alias_id%" route alias is deprecated. Do not use it anymore.'

In this example, every time the new_route_name alias is used, a deprecation warning is triggered, advising you to stop using that alias.

The message is actually a message template, which replaces occurrences of the %alias_id% placeholder by the route alias name. You must have at least one occurrence of the %alias_id% placeholder in your template.

Route Groups and Prefixes

It's common for a group of routes to share some options (e.g. all routes related to the blog start with /blog) That's why Symfony includes a feature to share route configuration.

When defining routes as attributes, put the common configuration in the #[Route] attribute of the controller class. In other routing formats, define the common configuration using options when importing the routes.

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// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

#[Route('/blog', requirements: ['_locale' => 'en|es|fr'], name: 'blog_')]
class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/{_locale}', name: 'index')]
    public function index(): Response
    {
        // ...
    }

    #[Route('/{_locale}/posts/{slug}', name: 'show')]
    public function show(string $slug): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Caution

The exclude option only works when the resource value is a glob string. If you use a regular string (e.g. '../src/Controller') the exclude value will be ignored.

In this example, the route of the index() action will be called blog_index and its URL will be /blog/{_locale}. The route of the show() action will be called blog_show and its URL will be /blog/{_locale}/posts/{slug}. Both routes will also validate that the _locale parameter matches the regular expression defined in the class attribute.

Note

If any of the prefixed routes defines an empty path, Symfony adds a trailing slash to it. In the previous example, an empty path prefixed with /blog will result in the /blog/ URL. If you want to avoid this behavior, set the trailing_slash_on_root option to false (this option is not available when using PHP attributes):

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# config/routes/attributes.yaml
controllers:
    resource: '../../src/Controller/'
    type:     attribute
    prefix:   '/blog'
    trailing_slash_on_root: false
    # ...

See also

Symfony can import routes from different sources and you can even create your own route loader.

Getting the Route Name and Parameters

The Request object created by Symfony stores all the route configuration (such as the name and parameters) in the "request attributes". You can get this information in a controller via the Request object:

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// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/blog', name: 'blog_list')]
    public function list(Request $request): Response
    {
        $routeName = $request->attributes->get('_route');
        $routeParameters = $request->attributes->get('_route_params');

        // use this to get all the available attributes (not only routing ones):
        $allAttributes = $request->attributes->all();

        // ...
    }
}

In services, you can get this information by injecting the RequestStack service. In templates, use the Twig global app variable to get the current route name (app.current_route) and its parameters (app.current_route_parameters).

Special Routes

Symfony defines some special controllers to render templates and redirect to other routes from the route configuration so you don't have to create a controller action.

Rendering a Template Directly from a Route

Read the section about rendering a template from a route in the main article about Symfony templates.

Redirecting to URLs and Routes Directly from a Route

Use the RedirectController to redirect to other routes and URLs:

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# config/routes.yaml
doc_shortcut:
    path: /doc
    controller: Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\RedirectController
    defaults:
        route: 'doc_page'
        # optionally you can define some arguments passed to the route
        page: 'index'
        version: 'current'
        # redirections are temporary by default (code 302) but you can make them permanent (code 301)
        permanent: true
        # add this to keep the original query string parameters when redirecting
        keepQueryParams: true
        # add this to keep the HTTP method when redirecting. The redirect status changes
        # * for temporary redirects, it uses the 307 status code instead of 302
        # * for permanent redirects, it uses the 308 status code instead of 301
        keepRequestMethod: true
        # add this to remove all original route attributes when redirecting
        ignoreAttributes: true
        # or specify which attributes to ignore:
        # ignoreAttributes: ['offset', 'limit']

legacy_doc:
    path: /legacy/doc
    controller: Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\RedirectController
    defaults:
        # this value can be an absolute path or an absolute URL
        path: 'https://legacy.example.com/doc'
        permanent: true

Tip

Symfony also provides some utilities to redirect inside controllers

Redirecting URLs with Trailing Slashes

Historically, URLs have followed the UNIX convention of adding trailing slashes for directories (e.g. https://example.com/foo/) and removing them to refer to files (https://example.com/foo). Although serving different contents for both URLs is OK, nowadays it's common to treat both URLs as the same URL and redirect between them.

Symfony follows this logic to redirect between URLs with and without trailing slashes (but only for GET and HEAD requests):

Route URL If the requested URL is /foo If the requested URL is /foo/
/foo It matches (200 status response) It makes a 301 redirect to /foo
/foo/ It makes a 301 redirect to /foo/ It matches (200 status response)

Sub-Domain Routing

Routes can configure a host option to require that the HTTP host of the incoming requests matches some specific value. In the following example, both routes match the same path (/) but one of them only responds to a specific host name:

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// src/Controller/MainController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class MainController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/', name: 'mobile_homepage', host: 'm.example.com')]
    public function mobileHomepage(): Response
    {
        // ...
    }

    #[Route('/', name: 'homepage')]
    public function homepage(): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

The value of the host option can include parameters (which is useful in multi-tenant applications) and these parameters can be validated too with requirements:

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// src/Controller/MainController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class MainController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route(
        '/',
        name: 'mobile_homepage',
        host: '{subdomain}.example.com',
        defaults: ['subdomain' => 'm'],
        requirements: ['subdomain' => 'm|mobile'],
    )]
    public function mobileHomepage(): Response
    {
        // ...
    }

    #[Route('/', name: 'homepage')]
    public function homepage(): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

In the above example, the subdomain parameter defines a default value because otherwise you need to include a subdomain value each time you generate a URL using these routes.

Tip

You can also set the host option when importing routes to make all of them require that host name.

Note

When using sub-domain routing, you must set the Host HTTP headers in functional tests or routes won't match:

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$crawler = $client->request(
    'GET',
    '/',
    [],
    [],
    ['HTTP_HOST' => 'm.example.com']
    // or get the value from some configuration parameter:
    // ['HTTP_HOST' => 'm.'.$client->getContainer()->getParameter('domain')]
);

Tip

You can also use the inline defaults and requirements format in the host option: {subdomain<m|mobile>?m}.example.com

Localized Routes (i18n)

If your application is translated into multiple languages, each route can define a different URL per each translation locale. This avoids the need for duplicating routes, which also reduces the potential bugs:

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// src/Controller/CompanyController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class CompanyController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route(path: [
        'en' => '/about-us',
        'nl' => '/over-ons'
    ], name: 'about_us')]
    public function about(): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Note

When using PHP attributes for localized routes, you have to use the path named parameter to specify the array of paths.

When a localized route is matched, Symfony uses the same locale automatically during the entire request.

Tip

When the application uses full "language + territory" locales (e.g. fr_FR, fr_BE), if the URLs are the same in all related locales, routes can use only the language part (e.g. fr) to avoid repeating the same URLs.

A common requirement for internationalized applications is to prefix all routes with a locale. This can be done by defining a different prefix for each locale (and setting an empty prefix for your default locale if you prefer it):

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# config/routes/attributes.yaml
controllers:
    resource: '../../src/Controller/'
    type: attribute
    prefix:
        en: '' # don't prefix URLs for English, the default locale
        nl: '/nl'

Note

If a route being imported includes the special _locale parameter in its own definition, Symfony will only import it for that locale and not for the other configured locale prefixes.

E.g. if a route contains locale: 'en' in its definition and it's being imported with en (prefix: empty) and nl (prefix: /nl) locales, that route will be available only in en locale and not in nl.

Another common requirement is to host the website on a different domain according to the locale. This can be done by defining a different host for each locale.

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# config/routes/attributes.yaml
controllers:
    resource: '../../src/Controller/'
    type: attribute
    host:
        en: 'www.example.com'
        nl: 'www.example.nl'

Stateless Routes

Sometimes, when an HTTP response should be cached, it is important to ensure that can happen. However, whenever a session is started during a request, Symfony turns the response into a private non-cacheable response.

For details, see HTTP Cache.

Routes can configure a stateless boolean option in order to declare that the session shouldn't be used when matching a request:

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// src/Controller/MainController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class MainController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/', name: 'homepage', stateless: true)]
    public function homepage(): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Now, if the session is used, the application will report it based on your kernel.debug parameter:

It will help you understand and hopefully fixing unexpected behavior in your application.

Generating URLs

Routing systems are bidirectional:

  1. they associate URLs with controllers (as explained in the previous sections);
  2. they generate URLs for a given route.

Generating URLs from routes allows you to not write the <a href="..."> values manually in your HTML templates. Also, if the URL of some route changes, you only have to update the route configuration and all links will be updated.

To generate a URL, you need to specify the name of the route (e.g. blog_show) and the values of the parameters defined by the route (e.g. slug = my-blog-post).

For that reason each route has an internal name that must be unique in the application. If you don't set the route name explicitly with the name option, Symfony generates an automatic name based on the controller and action.

Symfony declares route aliases based on the FQCN if the target class has an __invoke() method that adds a route and if the target class added one route exactly. Symfony also automatically adds an alias for every method that defines only one route. Consider the following class:

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// src/Controller/MainController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

final class MainController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/', name: 'homepage')]
    public function homepage(): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Symfony will add a route alias named App\Controller\MainController::homepage.

Generating URLs in Controllers

If your controller extends from the AbstractController, use the generateUrl() helper:

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// src/Controller/BlogController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Generator\UrlGeneratorInterface;

class BlogController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/blog', name: 'blog_list')]
    public function list(): Response
    {
        // generate a URL with no route arguments
        $signUpPage = $this->generateUrl('sign_up');

        // generate a URL with route arguments
        $userProfilePage = $this->generateUrl('user_profile', [
            'username' => $user->getUserIdentifier(),
        ]);

        // generated URLs are "absolute paths" by default. Pass a third optional
        // argument to generate different URLs (e.g. an "absolute URL")
        $signUpPage = $this->generateUrl('sign_up', [], UrlGeneratorInterface::ABSOLUTE_URL);

        // when a route is localized, Symfony uses by default the current request locale
        // pass a different '_locale' value if you want to set the locale explicitly
        $signUpPageInDutch = $this->generateUrl('sign_up', ['_locale' => 'nl']);

        // ...
    }
}

Note

If you pass to the generateUrl() method some parameters that are not part of the route definition, they are included in the generated URL as a query string:

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$this->generateUrl('blog', ['page' => 2, 'category' => 'Symfony']);
// the 'blog' route only defines the 'page' parameter; the generated URL is:
// /blog/2?category=Symfony

Caution

While objects are converted to string when used as placeholders, they are not converted when used as extra parameters. So, if you're passing an object (e.g. an Uuid) as value of an extra parameter, you need to explicitly convert it to a string:

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$this->generateUrl('blog', ['uuid' => (string) $entity->getUuid()]);

If your controller does not extend from AbstractController, you'll need to fetch services in your controller and follow the instructions of the next section.

Generating URLs in Services

Inject the router Symfony service into your own services and use its generate() method. When using service autowiring you only need to add an argument in the service constructor and type-hint it with the UrlGeneratorInterface class:

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// src/Service/SomeService.php
namespace App\Service;

use Symfony\Component\Routing\Generator\UrlGeneratorInterface;

class SomeService
{
    public function __construct(
        private UrlGeneratorInterface $urlGenerator,
    ) {
    }

    public function someMethod(): void
    {
        // ...

        // generate a URL with no route arguments
        $signUpPage = $this->urlGenerator->generate('sign_up');

        // generate a URL with route arguments
        $userProfilePage = $this->urlGenerator->generate('user_profile', [
            'username' => $user->getUserIdentifier(),
        ]);

        // generated URLs are "absolute paths" by default. Pass a third optional
        // argument to generate different URLs (e.g. an "absolute URL")
        $signUpPage = $this->urlGenerator->generate('sign_up', [], UrlGeneratorInterface::ABSOLUTE_URL);

        // when a route is localized, Symfony uses by default the current request locale
        // pass a different '_locale' value if you want to set the locale explicitly
        $signUpPageInDutch = $this->urlGenerator->generate('sign_up', ['_locale' => 'nl']);
    }
}

Generating URLs in Templates

Read the section about creating links between pages in the main article about Symfony templates.

Generating URLs in JavaScript

If your JavaScript code is included in a Twig template, you can use the path() and url() Twig functions to generate the URLs and store them in JavaScript variables. The escape() filter is needed to escape any non-JavaScript-safe values:

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<script>
    const route = "{{ path('blog_show', {slug: 'my-blog-post'})|escape('js') }}";
</script>

If you need to generate URLs dynamically or if you are using pure JavaScript code, this solution doesn't work. In those cases, consider using the FOSJsRoutingBundle.

Generating URLs in Commands

Generating URLs in commands works the same as generating URLs in services. The only difference is that commands are not executed in the HTTP context. Therefore, if you generate absolute URLs, you'll get http://localhost/ as the host name instead of your real host name.

The solution is to configure the default_uri option to define the "request context" used by commands when they generate URLs:

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# config/packages/routing.yaml
framework:
    router:
        # ...
        default_uri: 'https://example.org/my/path/'

Now you'll get the expected results when generating URLs in your commands:

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// src/Command/SomeCommand.php
namespace App\Command;

use Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Output\OutputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Generator\UrlGeneratorInterface;
// ...

class SomeCommand extends Command
{
    public function __construct(private UrlGeneratorInterface $urlGenerator)
    {
        parent::__construct();
    }

    protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output): int
    {
        // generate a URL with no route arguments
        $signUpPage = $this->urlGenerator->generate('sign_up');

        // generate a URL with route arguments
        $userProfilePage = $this->urlGenerator->generate('user_profile', [
            'username' => $user->getUserIdentifier(),
        ]);

        // by default, generated URLs are "absolute paths". Pass a third optional
        // argument to generate different URIs (e.g. an "absolute URL")
        $signUpPage = $this->urlGenerator->generate('sign_up', [], UrlGeneratorInterface::ABSOLUTE_URL);

        // when a route is localized, Symfony uses by default the current request locale
        // pass a different '_locale' value if you want to set the locale explicitly
        $signUpPageInDutch = $this->urlGenerator->generate('sign_up', ['_locale' => 'nl']);

        // ...
    }
}

Note

By default, the URLs generated for web assets use the same default_uri value, but you can change it with the asset.request_context.base_path and asset.request_context.secure container parameters.

Checking if a Route Exists

In highly dynamic applications, it may be necessary to check whether a route exists before using it to generate a URL. In those cases, don't use the getRouteCollection() method because that regenerates the routing cache and slows down the application.

Instead, try to generate the URL and catch the RouteNotFoundException thrown when the route doesn't exist:

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use Symfony\Component\Routing\Exception\RouteNotFoundException;

// ...

try {
    $url = $this->router->generate($routeName, $routeParameters);
} catch (RouteNotFoundException $e) {
    // the route is not defined...
}

Forcing HTTPS on Generated URLs

Note

If your server runs behind a proxy that terminates SSL, make sure to configure Symfony to work behind a proxy

The configuration for the scheme is only used for non-HTTP requests. The schemes option together with incorrect proxy configuration will lead to a redirect loop.

By default, generated URLs use the same HTTP scheme as the current request. In console commands, where there is no HTTP request, URLs use http by default. You can change this per command (via the router's getContext() method) or globally with these configuration parameters:

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# config/services.yaml
parameters:
    router.request_context.scheme: 'https'
    asset.request_context.secure: true

Outside of console commands, use the schemes option to define the scheme of each route explicitly:

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// src/Controller/SecurityController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class SecurityController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/login', name: 'login', schemes: ['https'])]
    public function login(): Response
    {
        // ...
    }
}

The URL generated for the login route will always use HTTPS. This means that when using the path() Twig function to generate URLs, you may get an absolute URL instead of a relative URL if the HTTP scheme of the original request is different from the scheme used by the route:

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{# if the current scheme is HTTPS, generates a relative URL: /login #}
{{ path('login') }}

{# if the current scheme is HTTP, generates an absolute URL to change
   the scheme: https://example.com/login #}
{{ path('login') }}

The scheme requirement is also enforced for incoming requests. If you try to access the /login URL with HTTP, you will automatically be redirected to the same URL, but with the HTTPS scheme.

If you want to force a group of routes to use HTTPS, you can define the default scheme when importing them. The following example forces HTTPS on all routes defined as attributes:

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# config/routes/attributes.yaml
controllers:
    resource: '../../src/Controller/'
    type: attribute
    schemes: [https]

Note

The Security component provides another way to enforce HTTP or HTTPS via the requires_channel setting.

Signing URIs

A signed URI is an URI that includes a hash value that depends on the contents of the URI. This way, you can later check the integrity of the signed URI by recomputing its hash value and comparing it with the hash included in the URI.

Symfony provides a utility to sign URIs via the UriSigner service, which you can inject in your services or controllers:

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// src/Service/SomeService.php
namespace App\Service;

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\UriSigner;

class SomeService
{
    public function __construct(
        private UriSigner $uriSigner,
    ) {
    }

    public function someMethod(): void
    {
        // ...

        // generate a URL yourself or get it somehow...
        $url = 'https://example.com/foo/bar?sort=desc';

        // sign the URL (it adds a query parameter called '_hash')
        $signedUrl = $this->uriSigner->sign($url);
        // $url = 'https://example.com/foo/bar?sort=desc&_hash=e4a21b9'

        // check the URL signature
        $uriSignatureIsValid = $this->uriSigner->check($signedUrl);
        // $uriSignatureIsValid = true

        // if you have access to the current Request object, you can use this
        // other method to pass the entire Request object instead of the URI:
        $uriSignatureIsValid = $this->uriSigner->checkRequest($request);
    }
}

For security reasons, it's common to make signed URIs expire after some time (e.g. when using them to reset user credentials). By default, signed URIs don't expire, but you can define an expiration date/time using the $expiration argument of sign():

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// src/Service/SomeService.php
namespace App\Service;

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\UriSigner;

class SomeService
{
    public function __construct(
        private UriSigner $uriSigner,
    ) {
    }

    public function someMethod(): void
    {
        // ...

        // generate a URL yourself or get it somehow...
        $url = 'https://example.com/foo/bar?sort=desc';

        // sign the URL with an explicit expiration date
        $signedUrl = $this->uriSigner->sign($url, new \DateTimeImmutable('2050-01-01'));
        // $signedUrl = 'https://example.com/foo/bar?sort=desc&_expiration=2524608000&_hash=e4a21b9'

        // if you pass a \DateInterval, it will be added from now to get the expiration date
        $signedUrl = $this->uriSigner->sign($url, new \DateInterval('PT10S'));  // valid for 10 seconds from now
        // $signedUrl = 'https://example.com/foo/bar?sort=desc&_expiration=1712414278&_hash=e4a21b9'

        // you can also use a timestamp in seconds
        $signedUrl = $this->uriSigner->sign($url, 4070908800); // timestamp for the date 2099-01-01
        // $signedUrl = 'https://example.com/foo/bar?sort=desc&_expiration=4070908800&_hash=e4a21b9'
    }
}

Note

The expiration date/time is included in the signed URIs as a timestamp via the _expiration query parameter.

7.1

The feature to add an expiration date for a signed URI was introduced in Symfony 7.1.

Troubleshooting

Here are some common errors you might see while working with routing:

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Controller "App\\Controller\\BlogController::show()" requires that you
provide a value for the "$slug" argument.

This happens when your controller method has an argument (e.g. $slug):

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public function show(string $slug): Response
{
    // ...
}

But your route path does not have a {slug} parameter (e.g. it is /blog/show). Add a {slug} to your route path: /blog/show/{slug} or give the argument a default value (i.e. $slug = null).

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Some mandatory parameters are missing ("slug") to generate a URL for route
"blog_show".

This means that you're trying to generate a URL to the blog_show route but you are not passing a slug value (which is required, because it has a {slug} parameter in the route path). To fix this, pass a slug value when generating the route:

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$this->generateUrl('blog_show', ['slug' => 'slug-value']);

or, in Twig:

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{{ path('blog_show', {slug: 'slug-value'}) }}

Learn more about Routing

This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.
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