Basic Routing

Learn how to define routes in Lyger Framework

Introduction

Lyger’s routing system provides a clean and expressive way to define your application’s routes. All routes are defined in the routes/web.php file and support common HTTP methods through the Route facade.

Available HTTP Methods

The router supports all standard HTTP methods:

GET Requests

use Lyger\Routing\Route;
use Lyger\Http\Response;

Route::get('/users', function ($request) {
    return Response::json(['users' => []]);
});

Route Handlers

Routes can use either closures or controller methods as handlers.

Closure Handlers

The simplest way to define a route is with a closure function:

use Lyger\Routing\Route;
use Lyger\Http\Response;

Route::get('/', function () {
    return Response::json([
        'name' => 'Lyger Framework v0.1',
        'status' => 'running',
        'message' => 'Welcome to Lyger - PHP on steroids with Rust FFI'
    ]);
});

All route handlers receive the Request object as the first parameter automatically.

Controller Handlers

For better organization, you can reference controller methods using an array syntax:

use Lyger\Routing\Route;
use App\Controllers\EngineController;

Route::get('/api/hello', [EngineController::class, 'hello']);
Route::get('/api/benchmark', [EngineController::class, 'benchmark']);
Route::get('/api/system', [EngineController::class, 'systemInfo']);

The controller method will automatically receive the Request object:

namespace App\Controllers;

use Lyger\Http\Request;
use Lyger\Http\Response;

class EngineController
{
    public function hello(Request $request): Response
    {
        return Response::json(['message' => 'Hello from Lyger!']);
    }
}

Response Types

Lyger provides convenient methods for returning different response types:

JSON Response

Route::get('/api/data', function () {
    return Response::json([
        'success' => true,
        'data' => ['key' => 'value']
    ]);
});

HTML Response

Route::get('/page', function () {
    $html = '<h1>Welcome to Lyger</h1>';
    return Response::html($html);
});

Text Response

Route::get('/robots.txt', function () {
    return Response::text('User-agent: *\nDisallow:');
});

Error Response

Route::get('/error', function () {
    return Response::error('Something went wrong', 500);
});

Auto-Response Formatting

If you return a non-Response value, the router will automatically format it:

// Returns as JSON
Route::get('/array', function () {
    return ['data' => 'value']; // Automatically becomes Response::json()
});

// Returns as HTML
Route::get('/string', function () {
    return '<h1>Hello</h1>'; // Automatically becomes Response::html()
});

Status Codes and Headers

You can customize response status codes and headers:

Route::get('/created', function () {
    return Response::json(['id' => 123], 201); // 201 Created
});

Route::get('/custom', function () {
    $response = Response::json(['data' => 'value']);
    $response->setHeader('X-Custom-Header', 'MyValue');
    return $response;
});

Loading Routes

Routes are automatically loaded from the routes/web.php file when the application bootstraps:

// In your bootstrap file
$router->loadRoutesFromFile(__DIR__ . '/routes/web.php');

If no route matches the incoming request, the router will automatically return a 404 Not Found response.

Working with the Request Object

Every route handler receives the Request object as the first parameter:

Route::post('/data', function ($request) {
    // Get query parameters
    $name = $request->get('name', 'Guest');
    
    // Get POST data
    $email = $request->post('email');
    
    // Get input (checks JSON, POST, then GET)
    $value = $request->input('key', 'default');
    
    // Get all input data
    $all = $request->all();
    
    // Get request method
    $method = $request->method(); // 'POST'
    
    // Get URI
    $uri = $request->uri(); // '/data'
    
    // Get headers
    $auth = $request->header('Authorization');
    
    // Get client IP
    $ip = $request->ip();
    
    return Response::json(['received' => $all]);
});

Next Steps

Route Parameters

Learn how to capture dynamic segments in your URLs

Middleware

Add middleware to filter and process requests