Codeigniter 2.0.x - Controller subdirectories default controller needs to be in URL - codeigniter

Question

I recently upgraded a site from CodeIgniter 1.7.x to 2.0.3. About the same time someone in my organization requested we add some pages to the site. Underneath a section. In the old version of the site I used some workarounds in the controller to break up a longer URL. But in version 2 I see that I should be able to use subdirectories in the controllers folder to do it in a more proper way. After looking all over the place I've tried all sorts of routing declarations and fiddled with all sorts of things. Hopefully I'm doing something simple, wrong, or perhaps someone has seen a similar issue stemming from the upgrade.
I'm trying to get the URL from something like:
/about/locations
Which used to work with a controller named about.php. To something more like:
/about/social_responsibility/commitment
Where about is now a aub-directory.
Funny thing is, currently it does sorta work. That second URL displays correctly. However my old pages, that first URL, now do not function... My new structure uses a base.php (default_controller) in the about directory. Thus if I write:
/about/base/locations
It does work. But I thought the whole routing thing (default controller) and using subdirectories is supposed to clean the URL up.
My info is as follows...
Current Routing (it's changed a bunch over the last few hours)
$route['default_controller'] = "base";
$route['404_override'] = '';
$route['about'] = "about/base";
Directories and Files
/controllers/about/base.php
/controllers/about/social_responsibility.php
Chunk of base.php
class Base extends MY_Controller
{
public function __construct()
{
parent::__construct();
$this->data['parent'] = "About";
$this->load->model('mnav');
}
public function index()
{
}
public function locations()
{
}
}
I also have a MY_Controller that extends CI_Controller, but all it does is enable FirePHP for me in the development environment.
Anyone have any clues? Or need some more info to help? Thanks!

Answer 1

I just tested on my system, with CI 2.0.2 and it seems that the default controller setting works for subdirectories as well, without any other routes.
// so in your config file, whatever your default_controller is set to...
// you would just use that as the name of the `base` controller in about
// for example, if your default_controller is 'welcome'
// in /application/config.php
$route['default_controller'] = "welcome";
$route['404_override'] = '';
// then, it should work for the subdirectory where there is a controller
// named 'welcome'
// application/controllers/about/base.php
class Welcome extends MY_Controller
{
public function __construct()
{
parent::__construct();
}
public function index()
{
echo "I can be reached with /about";
}
}
So, all you should have to do is remove all of the routes for about
// remove this
$route['about'] = "about/base";
Important
This will only work when accessing /about -- anything in additional segments will be looking for additional controllers. So you'd have to think about how you'd like to access the base controller (whether or not you name it something else).

Answer 2

I'd assume that /about/locations is looking for an actual "locations" controller in your about folder, rather than being the method for your base controller. As far as CI knows, you're trying to execute one of two functions:
About controller's "locations" method
about/Locations controller's index method (obviously doesn't exist)
It follows that any 3-segment or greater URI will work with this scheme, but 2-segment URI's will confuse it. I don't think letting CI fallback to the default controller is going to work here. Try this:
$route['default_controller'] = "base";
$route['404_override'] = '';
$route['([^\/]*)'] = '$1/base';
$route['([^\/]*)/([^\/]*)'] = '$1/base/$2';