Built-in server-side routing

[ideaguy3d]

🧩 Proposal: Built-in Front Controller / Auto-Routing Mode for PHP

Title: Native front-controller routing without frameworks or config files

---

🎯 Goal

Enable developers to use clean URLs and centralized routing behavior like /hello/{name} or /api/posts without frameworks, .htaccess, or server config.
Everything should work automatically through a single index.php entry point.

---

💡 Concept

Add a built-in feature or ini flag such as:

auto_route = On

When enabled, PHP would:

1. Accept all requests (even if the .php extension isn’t present).
2. Try to serve static files if they exist.
3. If no static file is found:
   • Try <path>.php
   • Try <path>/index.php
   • Otherwise, forward to /index.php
4. Populate a special variable like $_SERVER['PATH_INFO'] or $ROUTE_PATH to reflect the clean URL.

This would make it possible to handle all routes from a single index.php file:

<?php
$router = new Php\Router();

$router->get('/hello/{name}', function($params) {
    echo "Well, Ello There {$params['name']}";
});

$router->get('/test/add-random/skills', function() {
    $db = class_exists('AppGlobals') && AppGlobals::isLocal()
        ? new DBLocal()
        : new DBProd();
    $users = new ModelUsers($db, Logger::instance());
    $result = $users->addSkillsToMockUsers();
    echo json_encode($result);
});

$router->run();

---

🧠 Rationale

This would make PHP immediately useful for:

• Rapid prototypes and microservices.
• Shared hosting where .htaccess is restricted.
• Developers who want framework-like routing without dependencies.

It matches the “batteries included” philosophy of modern scripting environments (Node’s Express, Python’s Flask, etc.) while keeping PHP simple and fast.

---

⚙️ Implementation Notes

• SAPI target: Built-in CLI server first (php -S ...). Later expansion to Apache SAPI (optional).
• Security: Static files should still be prioritized to prevent accidental exposure.
• Performance: Only a few is_file() checks added when auto_route is enabled.
• Backward compatibility: Off by default; purely opt-in.

---

🗣️ Summary

PHP should have a native, optional front controller mode that allows /route → /route.php or /index.php routing automatically, with no external config.

This would make PHP dramatically more accessible to beginners and microservice developers, eliminating the “.php suffix” problem and creating a simpler out-of-the-box experience similar to Slim or Express, but without frameworks.

[iluuu1994]

The cli server supports router scripts. When launching it with php -S 127.0.0.1:8080 index.php, all requests will go through index.php. This is effectively what you're looking for. You can then implement your own front controller. If you want to fall-back to the default file-serving for a subset of requests, you can return false; from the router script.

For more details: https://www.php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.webserver.php

[oladoyinbov]

This request needs an RFC, I guess.

Here: https://wiki.php.net/rfc