URL Generation

• Introduction
• The Basics
  • Generating URLs
  • Accessing the Current URL
• URLs for Named Routes
  • Signed URLs
• URLs for Controller Actions
• Fluent URI Objects
• Default Values

Introduction

Laravel provides several helpers to assist you in generating URLs for your application. These helpers are primarily helpful when building links in your templates and API responses, or when generating redirect responses to another part of your application.

The Basics

Generating 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 being handled by the application:

$post = App\Models\Post::find(1);

echo url("/posts/{$post->id}");

// http://example.com/posts/1

To generate a URL with query string parameters, you may use the query method:

echo url()->query('/posts', ['search' => 'Laravel']);

// https://example.com/posts?search=Laravel

echo url()->query('/posts?sort=latest', ['search' => 'Laravel']);

// http://example.com/posts?sort=latest&search=Laravel

Providing query string parameters that already exist in the path will overwrite their existing value:

echo url()->query('/posts?sort=latest', ['sort' => 'oldest']);

// http://example.com/posts?sort=oldest

Arrays of values may also be passed as query parameters. These values will be properly keyed and encoded in the generated URL:

echo $url = url()->query('/posts', ['columns' => ['title', 'body']]);

// http://example.com/posts?columns%5B0%5D=title&columns%5B1%5D=body

echo urldecode($url);

// http://example.com/posts?columns[0]=title&columns[1]=body

Accessing the Current URL

If no path is provided to the url helper, an 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();

// Get the path for the previous request...
echo url()->previousPath();

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 calls to the route function. For example, imagine your application contains a route defined like the following:

Route::get('/post/{post}', function (Post $post) {
    // ...
})->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

Of course, the route helper may also be used to generate URLs for routes with multiple parameters:

Route::get('/post/{post}/comment/{comment}', function (Post $post, Comment $comment) {
    // ...
})->name('comment.show');

echo route('comment.show', ['post' => 1, 'comment' => 3]);

// http://example.com/post/1/comment/3

Any additional array elements that do not correspond to the route's definition parameters will be added to the URL's query string:

echo route('post.show', ['post' => 1, 'search' => 'rocket']);

// http://example.com/post/1?search=rocket

Eloquent Models

You will often be generating URLs using the route key (typically 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 route 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]);

You may exclude the domain from the signed URL hash by providing the absolute argument to the signedRoute method:

return URL::signedRoute('unsubscribe', ['user' => 1], absolute: false);

If you would like to generate a temporary signed route URL that expires after a specified amount of time, you may use the temporarySignedRoute method. When Laravel validates a temporary signed route URL, it will ensure that the expiration timestamp that is encoded into the signed URL has not elapsed:

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 Illuminate\Http\Request instance:

use Illuminate\Http\Request;

Route::get('/unsubscribe/{user}', function (Request $request) {
    if (! $request->hasValidSignature()) {
        abort(401);
    }

    // ...
})->name('unsubscribe');

Sometimes, you may need to allow your application's frontend to append data to a signed URL, such as when performing client-side pagination. Therefore, you can specify request query parameters that should be ignored when validating a signed URL using the hasValidSignatureWhileIgnoring method. Remember, ignoring parameters allows anyone to modify those parameters on the request:

if (! $request->hasValidSignatureWhileIgnoring(['page', 'order'])) {
    abort(401);
}

Instead of validating signed URLs using the incoming request instance, you may assign the signed (Illuminate\Routing\Middleware\ValidateSignature) middleware to the route. If the incoming request does not have a valid signature, the middleware will automatically return a 403 HTTP response:

Route::post('/unsubscribe/{user}', function (Request $request) {
    // ...
})->name('unsubscribe')->middleware('signed');

If your signed URLs do not include the domain in the URL hash, you should provide the relative argument to the middleware:

Route::post('/unsubscribe/{user}', function (Request $request) {
    // ...
})->name('unsubscribe')->middleware('signed:relative');

Responding to Invalid Signed Routes

When someone visits a signed URL that has expired, they will receive a generic error page for the 403 HTTP status code. However, you can customize this behavior by defining a custom "render" closure for the InvalidSignatureException exception in your application's bootstrap/app.php file:

use Illuminate\Routing\Exceptions\InvalidSignatureException;

->withExceptions(function (Exceptions $exceptions) {
    $exceptions->render(function (InvalidSignatureException $e) {
        return response()->view('errors.link-expired', status: 403);
    });
})

URLs for Controller Actions

The action function generates a URL for the given controller action:

use App\Http\Controllers\HomeController;

$url = action([HomeController::class, 'index']);

If the controller method accepts route parameters, you may pass an associative array of route parameters as the second argument to the function:

$url = action([UserController::class, 'profile'], ['id' => 1]);

Fluent URI Objects

Laravel's Uri class provides a convenient and fluent interface for creating and manipulating URIs via objects. This class wraps the functionality provided by the underlying League URI package and integrates seamlessly with Laravel's routing system.

You can create a Uri instance easily using static methods:

use App\Http\Controllers\UserController;
use App\Http\Controllers\InvokableController;
use Illuminate\Support\Uri;

// Generate a URI instance from the given string...
$uri = Uri::of('https://example.com/path');

// Generate URI instances to paths, named routes, or controller actions...
$uri = Uri::to('/dashboard');
$uri = Uri::route('users.show', ['user' => 1]);
$uri = Uri::signedRoute('users.show', ['user' => 1]);
$uri = Uri::temporarySignedRoute('user.index', now()->addMinutes(5));
$uri = Uri::action([UserController::class, 'index']);
$uri = Uri::action(InvokableController::class);

// Generate a URI instance from the current request URL...
$uri = $request->uri();

Once you have a URI instance, you can fluently modify it:

$uri = Uri::of('https://example.com')
    ->withScheme('http')
    ->withHost('test.com')
    ->withPort(8000)
    ->withPath('/users')
    ->withQuery(['page' => 2])
    ->withFragment('section-1');

For more information on working with fluent URI objects, consult the URI documentation.

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\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\URL;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;

class SetDefaultLocaleForUrls
{
    /**
     * Handle an incoming request.
     *
     * @param  \Closure(\Illuminate\Http\Request): (\Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response)  $next
     */
    public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next): Response
    {
        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.

URL Defaults and Middleware Priority

Setting URL default values can interfere with Laravel's handling of implicit model bindings. Therefore, you should prioritize your middleware that set URL defaults to be executed before Laravel's own SubstituteBindings middleware. You can accomplish this using the priority middleware method in your application's bootstrap/app.php file:

->withMiddleware(function (Middleware $middleware) {
    $middleware->prependToPriorityList(
        before: \Illuminate\Routing\Middleware\SubstituteBindings::class,
        prepend: \App\Http\Middleware\SetDefaultLocaleForUrls::class,
    );
})