Laravel - append a trailing slash in routes

Question

As I mentioned several times here, I'm redoing one of my old sites with Laravel.

Another problem I encounter is the following :

• I've got mainly two different types of urls on the old website :
  • /user-slug/ for the users homepage, and
  • /user-slug/content-slug.html for one of its content

I managed to recreate the second one, but Laravel always trims the last slash when I try to create a link to the user route, and I end with an url like /user-slug

I don't want to lose any SEO when switching the old website to Laravel, so I wanted to know whether it was possible to force Laravel to append the trailing slash on one url ?

---

My code so far:

app\Providers\RouteServiceProvider.php :

public function boot(Router $router)
{
    $router->pattern('user', '[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+');
    $router->pattern('content', '[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+');
    parent::boot($router);
}

app\Http\routes.php :

Route::group(['middleware' => ['web']], function () {
    Route::get('/', [
        'as'   => 'index',
        'uses' => 'BaseController@index',
    ]);

    Route::get('/{user}/', [
        'as'   => 'user',
        'uses' => 'UserController@show',
    ]);

    Route::get('/{user}/{content}.html', [
        'as'   => 'content',
        'uses' => 'ContentController@show',
    ]);
});

views/home.blade.php :

{!! Html::linkRoute('user', $content['user']['name'], [$content->user->slug]) !!}

---

If there is no workaround, I'll use a .htaccess file to redirect all /user-slug/ urls to /user-slug, but if I can avoid it, that would be cool.

Broderickbrodeur

As the version without slash is considered as a file, and the version with slash is considered as a directory, they could reference two different contents, so they are considered as two different urls (Source webmaster central) – Broderickbrodeur

Choosing between the two types of urls doesn't affect SEO, but in my case, I already have existing urls with the slash. The new urls without the slash will be considered as new urls, and even if I 301 redirect the old scheme to the new, I might experience some SEO loss for a while. – Broderickbrodeur

Answer 1

Humm I think it looks possible through middleware eg.

1. $ php artisan make:middleware slashesMiddleware

2. go to app/Http/Middleware/slashesMiddleware.php and fill it with this content

   <?php
   
   namespace App\Http\Middleware;
   use Closure;
   
   class slashesMiddleware
   {
       /**
        * Handle an incoming request.
        *
        * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
        * @param  \Closure  $next
        * @return mixed
        */
       public function handle($request, Closure $next, $flag)
       {
           if ($flag=="remove") {
               if (ends_with($request->getPathInfo(), '/')) {
                   $newval = rtrim($request->getPathInfo(), "/");
                   header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
                   header("Location:$newval");
                   exit();
               }
           } else {
               if (!ends_with($request->getPathInfo(), '/')) {
                   $newval =$request->getPathInfo().'/';
                   header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
                   header("Location:$newval");
                   exit();
               }
           }
           return $next($request);
       }
   }
   

3. this add 2 methods first "add" trailing slash to route or "remove" it

4. add it list of middlewares of you app go to app/Http/Kernel.php under the array $routeMiddleware

       protected $routeMiddleware = [
           'auth' => \App\Http\Middleware\Authenticate::class,
           'auth.basic' => \Illuminate\Auth\Middleware\AuthenticateWithBasicAuth::class,
           'bindings' => \Illuminate\Routing\Middleware\SubstituteBindings::class,
           'cache.headers' => \Illuminate\Http\Middleware\SetCacheHeaders::class,
           'can' => \Illuminate\Auth\Middleware\Authorize::class,
           'guest' => \App\Http\Middleware\RedirectIfAuthenticated::class,
           'signed' => \Illuminate\Routing\Middleware\ValidateSignature::class,
           'throttle' => \Illuminate\Routing\Middleware\ThrottleRequests::class,
           'verified' => \Illuminate\Auth\Middleware\EnsureEmailIsVerified::class,
           'slashes' => \App\Http\Middleware\slashesMiddleware::class,
       ];
   

   5. finnaly added it to any route you want or you can add it to all route from $middleware array

example of usage

Route::get('/compare', 'WebRouteController@compare')->middleware("slashes:add");

Delative