How to Allow a “/” Character in a Route Parameter

Sometimes, you need to compose URLs with parameters that can contain a slash /. For example, take the classic /hello/{username} route. By default, /hello/Fabien will match this route but not /hello/Fabien/Kris. This is because Symfony uses this character as separator between route parts.

This guide covers how you can modify a route so that /hello/Fabien/Kris matches the /hello/{username} route, where {username} equals Fabien/Kris.

Configure the Route

By default, the Symfony Routing component requires that the parameters match the following regex path: [^/]+. This means that all characters are allowed except /.

You must explicitly allow / to be part of your parameter by specifying a more permissive regex path.

• Annotations

  use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Route;
  
  class DemoController
  {
      /**
       * @Route("/hello/{name}", name="_hello", requirements={"name"=".+"})
       */
      public function helloAction($name)
      {
          // ...
      }
  }
  

• YAML

  _hello:
      path:     /hello/{username}
      defaults: { _controller: AppBundle:Demo:hello }
      requirements:
          username: .+
  

• XML

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
  
  <routes xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/routing"
      xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
      xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/routing http://symfony.com/schema/routing/routing-1.0.xsd">
  
      <route id="_hello" path="/hello/{username}">
          <default key="_controller">AppBundle:Demo:hello</default>
          <requirement key="username">.+</requirement>
      </route>
  </routes>
  

• PHP

  use Symfony\Component\Routing\RouteCollection;
  use Symfony\Component\Routing\Route;
  
  $collection = new RouteCollection();
  $collection->add('_hello', new Route('/hello/{username}', array(
      '_controller' => 'AppBundle:Demo:hello',
  ), array(
      'username' => '.+',
  )));
  
  return $collection;
  

That’s it! Now, the {username} parameter can contain the / character.