Laravel 4 : Route to localhost/controller/action - laravel

Question

I'm more or less new to Laravel 4. I've never used routes before but normally what I'm used to is url/controller/action and then the backend routing for me. I've read the documentation for routes and controllers a few times as well as read through some tutorials and so, I'm trying to figure out how to get this to work without writing a route for every controller and action.
I tried something like
Route::get('{controller}/{action}', function($controller, $action = 'index'){
return $controller."#".$action;
});
Now then, I know this is wrong since it doesn't work, but what am I missing? On most tutorials and stuff I'm seeing an route for more or less every controller and action like:
Route::get('/controller/action' , 'ControllerName#Action');
Which seems silly and like a waste of time to me.
Is there anyway to achieve what I want?

Answer 1

If you are looking for a more automated routing, this would be the Laravel 4 way:
Route:
Route::controller('users', 'UsersController');
Controller (in this case UsersController.php):
public function getIndex()
{
// routed from GET request to /users
}
public function getProfile()
{
// routed from GET request to /users/profile
}
public function postProfile()
{
// routed from POST request to /users/profile
}
public function getPosts($id)
{
// routed from GET request to: /users/posts/42
}
As The Shift Exchange mentioned, there are some benefits to doing it the verbose way. In addition to the excellent article he linked, you can create a name for each route, for example:
Route::get("users", array(
"as"=>"dashboard",
"uses"=>"UsersController#getIndex"
));
Then when creating urls in your application, use a helper to generate a link to a named route:
$url = URL::route('dashboard');
Links are then future proofed from changes to controllers/actions.
You can also generate links directly to actions which would still work with automatic routing.
$url = URL::action('UsersController#getIndex');

Answer 2

app\
controllers\
Admin\
AdminController.php
IndexController.php
Route::get('/admin/{controller?}/{action?}', function($controller='Index', $action='index'){
$controller = ucfirst($controller);
$action = $action . 'Action';
return App::make("Admin\\{$controller}Controller")->$action();
});
Route::get('/{controller?}/{action?}', function($controller='Index', $action='index'){
$controller = ucfirst($controller);
$action = $action . 'Action';
return App::make("{$controller}Controller")->$action();
});

Answer 3

I come from .Net world and routing is typically done:
/{Controller}/{action}/{id}
Which looks like:
/Products/Show/1 OR /Products/Show/Beverages
In Laravel I accomplish this routing like so:
Route::get('/{controller?}/{action?}/{id?}', function ($controller='Home', $action='index', $id = null) {
$controller = ucfirst($controller);
return APP::make("{$controller}Controller")->$action($id);
});
The controller would look roughly like so:
class ProductsController extends BaseController {
public function Show($id) {
$products = array( 1 => array("Price" => "$600","Item" => "iPhone 6"),
2 => array("Price" => "$700", "Item" => "iPhone 6 Plus") );
if ($id == null) {
echo $products[1]["Item"];
} else {
echo $products[$id]["Item"];
}
}
}