How to create URL & Read on Codeigniter?

Question

How to create dynamic URL in Codeigniter?.

I've following table which stores basic article details:

 1. ID
 2. Article Title
 3. Content
 4. Tags
 5. Status
 6. Create Time
 7. Update Time
 8. Author ID
 9. Status

Now I want to know how to create dynamic URL, which holds Page ID & Article Title.

For example http://www.domain.com/1/hello-codeigniter

Now above sample URL, I am generating URL with ID & Article Title.

1. ID for retrieve article content (When user clicks to article, get content from ID).
2. Article Title for Safe URL.

but I don't want to show ID from URL and still get content when user redirect to detail page.

HERE IS MY CODE:

View: home_page.php

<div id="body">
        <?php for($i=0; $i<count($blogPosts); $i++): ?>
            <div class="post-preview">
                <?php
                    $postID = $blogPosts[$i]->id; // Get post ID
                    $postTitle = $blogPosts[$i]->title; // Get post Title
                    $urlTitle = preg_replace('/\s+/', '-', $postTitle); // Replacing space with dash
                    echo anchor('content/'.$postID.'/'.$urlTitle, $postTitle, array('title' => $postTitle)); // Get post URL
                    echo "<br />";
                ?>
            </div>
            <hr>
        <?php endfor; ?>
    </div>

Controller: home.php

<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');

class Home extends CI_Controller {

    public function index() {

        $this->load->model("HomeModel"); // Load HomeModel
        $data['blogPosts'] = $this->HomeModel->blogPosts(); // Get blog posts data from blogPostsData function
        $this->load->view("home_page", $data);

    }

}

Model: HomeModel.php

class HomeModel extends CI_Model {

    public function blogPosts() {

        $this->db->select('*');
        $this->db->from('blog_posts');
        $query = $this->db->get();
        return $query->result();

    }

}

After coding When I hover to anchor link I am getting this URL:

http://localhost/codeIgniter/index.php/content/1/My-First-Blog-Post!

How to hide index.php, content & 1 from URL.

One more thing is that When I clicked to link I am getting this error message:

An Error Was Encountered 
The URI you submitted has disallowed characters.

Any help would be appreciated!!!

Answer 1

You can use routes for this purpose

To remove index.php use .htaccess with following code

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L]

and in config.php

$config['uri_protocol'] = 'AUTO';

To remove content from url remove content from anchor in view

echo anchor($postID.'/'.$urlTitle, $postTitle, array('title' => $postTitle)); // Get post URL

I don't think so you should remove 1 from url. If you remove it from url then how can you identify your post. So it will be good to keep it in url. Or if you want to remove then append this id at the end of post title like

http://localhost/codeIgniter/My-First-Blog-Post!-1

and explode the last element for id of post

An Error Was Encountered 
The URI you submitted has disallowed characters.

you are getting this error because in your url you added !. To make your application secure CI prevent special characters from url. So it would be best practice to don't use special characters in url except _ and -.

On your Controller

class Content extends CI_Controller {
    function index($id, $name)
    {
        echo $name;// this contain book name 
        echo $id;// this contain book id

        //your code
    }
}

now in your routes application/config/routes.php

$route['(:num)/(:any)']='content/index/$1/$2';

Answer 2

If you store the slug (Article Title for Safe URL) in the database, you don't need to expose the id at all. This would involve adding a column to your table though.

You can automate the slug generation on article creation using the url_title() as detailed here.

Answer 3

<a href="<?php echo base_url()?>index.php/controller_name/method_name/<?php echo $item['name'] ?>/<?php echo $item['id'] ?>" alt="">click here to view</a>

So your URL looks like www.example.com/index.php/controller_name/method/book_name/book id

In Controller

function method_name($name, $id)
{
    echo $name;// this contain book name 
    echo $id;// this contain book id

    //Simply you can use this to get all data
    $result = $this->Model_name->get_book_details($id);//in model $id hold the id of book
}