Laravel 5.1 ajax url parameter is url

Question

I am working with Laravel 5.1 for the first time and I cannot understand why I am getting 404s on an ajax call that passes a URL to the server PHP script as a parameter.

I am executing an Ajax call that is being handled by a route as follows:

Route::get('ajax/{act}', ['uses' => 'AjaxController@helpers', 'as' => 'ajax.helpers']);

I want the variable {act} to hold the sring of key / value pairs I pass. I decode these in the PHP at the server end. The Ajax PHP script contains a variety of helpers and I do not want to create a Laravel rout for each.

In my app, the user will input a url in a form field, which I capture in a variable called website

My ajax call needs to accept:

var url = '/ajax/act=url&u=' + website;

I am doing this to build the url I then pass to a jQuery $.getJSON call:

var url = '/ajax/act=url&&u=' + encodeURIComponent(website);

I would expect the encodeURIcompponent() function to make this work, but it returns 404 when any of the parameters contain / characters prior to the encodeURIComponent(). My base url works perfectly without the additional url as a parameter.

But passing a url as a variable value, it throws 404.

This is what the url in ajax call looks like that returns 404:

http://my.app/ajax/act=url&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgoogle.com

This url works perfectly (I have removed the // from http://google.com:

http://my.app/ajax/act=url&u=http%3Agoogle.com

It also fails when there is additional path items in the variable url as it contains additional / characters, like as follows:

http://google.com/subfolder

How do I pass the full url as a parameter in the ajax call? Thanks!

Answer 1

I think you're confusing route parameters and query parameters. Your route is defined as ajax/{action}. In this case, {action} is a route parameter, but you're trying to stuff query parameters into it.

For example, if you access the url http://my.app/ajax/act=url&u=google.com, this will work because you've hit the route ajax/{action}, where {action} is act=url&u=google.com. That is the value that will get passed to your AjaxController@helpers function. However, since this data is passed in as a route parameter, it is not in the request input. $request->all() will be empty.

However, if you access the url http://my.app/ajax/act=url&u=http://google.com, this will not work, as you do not have this route defined. This does not map to the ajax/{action} route; this route would be mapped to ajax/{action}//google.com, which you do not have defined (hence the 404).

I think what you're really looking for is this: http://my.app/ajax/url?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgoogle.com. This will hit your ajax/{action} route with url as the {action} route parameter and the url value will be in the query parameters. Inside your AjaxController@helpers function, you can access the url via $request->input('u');.

Edit

If you really need this data to come in as a route parameter, another option you have to make sure your route parameter consumes everything, including slashes:

Route::get('ajax/{action}', ['uses' => 'AjaxController@helpers', 'as' => 'ajax.helpers'])
    ->where('action', '.*');

If you do this, however, this route will catch everything that falls under http://my.app/ajax/....

Answer 2

You are using relative paths with your url variable (as you've a leading / in your URL), that could be causing the 404 not found error.

Try storing your base url using Laravel's helper method url() in a hidden field in your view (you could do it in your master view if you wanted).

<input id='baseUrl' type='hidden' value='{{ url() }}' />

You can grab the value as simple as creating a JS helper function as such:

var baseUrl = function(){
    return $('#baseUrl').val();
};

Then append that url into the beginning of your variable url like so:

var url = baseUrl() + '/ajax/act=url&&u=' + encodeURIComponent(website);