Handle 404 errors properly (WordPress-like) with Kohanaphp Framework

Oui j’ai mis le titre en anglais car je compte beaucoup sur le SEO de cet article, gniarf.

Based on this article at Rapidop

Goal of the application

– You create a CMS where you can register Pages
– Each page has a slug URL, i.e. : « nananana.com/slug » <— as in WordPress « pages »
– You want Kohana 2.x to load an article based on the slug
– So you need to catch the 404 (beware not to name your slugs as real Controllers names !!)
– And you need to redirect to the Main Controller and use the __call() method.

Go !

Config : enabling hooks

in /application/config/config.php :

/**
 * Enable or disable hooks.
 */
$config['enable_hooks'] = TRUE;

Create a hook file named my_errors in /application/hooks folder.
In /application/hooks/my_errors.php :

<?php

defined('SYSPATH') or die('No direct script access.');
Event::clear('system.404', array('Kohana', 'show_404'));
Event::add('system.404', 'my_404');

function my_404() {
    // get the first part of the requested URI
    $segment = Router::$current_uri;
    url::redirect('main/'.$segment);
}

?>

Checking the Main Controller

– First things first, you can use any Controller name you need. Mine is called « main ».
–  Check that you have a __call() methode inside, like this :

public function __call($method, $arguments) {
        // Disable auto-rendering
        $this->auto_render = FALSE;

        // By defining a __call method, all pages routed to this controller
        // that result in 404 errors will be handled by this method, instead of
        // being displayed as "Page Not Found" errors.
        echo 'This text is generated by __call. If you expected the index page, you need to use: welcome/index/' . substr(Router::$current_uri, 8);
    }

At this step if you go to, for example, https://localhost/main/polarity-therapy you should see this error message generated by Kohana :
This text is generated by __call. If you expected the index page, you need to use : welcome/index/arity-therapy

Updating the __call() method

public function __call($method, $arguments) {
        // the page we're trying to reach == the method kohana tries to load
        $page = Router::$method;

        // is there such a slug in the pages?
        $temp = ORM_MPTT::factory('pages')->where('slug', $page)->find_all();
        if (count($temp)) {
            // in the Page Controller you deploy a normal page serving system
            url::redirect('main/page/' . $page);
        } else {
            // the slug doesn't exist, so we need to throw a real 404 page this time.
            $this->template->texte = new View('404');
        }
    }

Comments are explicit so I leave this block to your appreciation.

It works like this. Enjoy !