Laravel 5 - Rest - rest

Question

Good morning,
I'm working on a laravel 5 social-network-like app and I'm trying to use Restfull controllers but I've found a problem
How can I avoid the resource for the user?
I mean, how can I do this:
Route::resource('{username}', 'UserController');
instead of this:
Route::resource('user/{username}´, 'UserController');
The first one takes me to index method inside UserController, but it must take me to show method, taking {username} as the id parameter.
Therefore I would make nested resources like
// user's photos index
Route::resource('{username}/photos´, 'UserPhotosController');
// show one photo (photo_id)
Route::resource('{username}/photos/photo_id´, 'UserPhotosController');
Any ideas?

Answer 1

When defining this: Route::resource('{username}', 'UserController');
These are the routes that get generated by Laravel:
| GET|HEAD | {username} | {username}.index | UserController#index |
| GET|HEAD | {username}/create | {username}.create | UserController#create |
| POST | {username} | {username}.store | UserController#store |
| GET|HEAD | {username}/{{username}} | {username}.show | UserController#show |
| GET|HEAD | {username}/{{username}}/edit | {username}.edit | UserController#edit |
| PUT | {username}/{{username}} | {username}.update | UserController#update |
| PATCH | {username}/{{username}} | | UserController#update |
| DELETE | {username}/{{username}} | {username}.destroy | UserController#destroy |
This table shows that the /{username} route will go to the UserController#index method. Also, If you notice, the show route that gets generated is actually:
{username}/{{username}}
Therefore I wouldn't suggest to use the Resource route generator, instead is best if you defined the routes in an explicit manner. For example:
Route::get('{username}', ['as' => 'username.show', 'uses' => 'UserController#show']);
Also, Laravel reads the routes in the order that they appear. When you define such dynamics routes, make sure that this routes are the last one in your route.php file. Example:
Route::get('about', 'StaticPagesController#about');
Route::get('blog', 'StaticPagesController#blog');
Route::get('contact', 'StaticPagesController#contact');
Route::get('{username}', ['as' => 'username.show', 'uses' => 'UserController#show']);