Routing
=======

With resource and controller classes ready, you can access the resources using the URL like
`http://localhost/index.php?r=user/create`, similar to what you can do with normal Web applications.

In practice, you usually want to enable pretty URLs and take advantage of HTTP verbs.
For example, a request `POST /users` would mean accessing the `user/create` action.
This can be done easily by configuring the `urlManager` application component in the application
configuration like the following:

```php
'urlManager' => [
    'enablePrettyUrl' => true,
    'enableStrictParsing' => true,
    'showScriptName' => false,
    'rules' => [
        ['class' => 'yii\rest\UrlRule', 'controller' => 'user'],
    ],
]
```

Compared to the URL management for Web applications, the main new thing above is the use of
[[yii\rest\UrlRule]] for routing RESTful API requests. This special URL rule class will
create a whole set of child URL rules to support routing and URL creation for the specified controller(s).
For example, the above code is roughly equivalent to the following rules:

```php
[
    'PUT,PATCH users/<id>' => 'user/update',
    'DELETE users/<id>' => 'user/delete',
    'GET,HEAD users/<id>' => 'user/view',
    'POST users' => 'user/create',
    'GET,HEAD users' => 'user/index',
    'users/<id>' => 'user/options',
    'users' => 'user/options',
]
```

And the following API endpoints are supported by this rule:

* `GET /users`: list all users page by page;
* `HEAD /users`: show the overview information of user listing;
* `POST /users`: create a new user;
* `GET /users/123`: return the details of the user 123;
* `HEAD /users/123`: show the overview information of user 123;
* `PATCH /users/123` and `PUT /users/123`: update the user 123;
* `DELETE /users/123`: delete the user 123;
* `OPTIONS /users`: show the supported verbs regarding endpoint `/users`;
* `OPTIONS /users/123`: show the supported verbs regarding endpoint `/users/123`.

You may configure the `only` and `except` options to explicitly list which actions to support or which
actions should be disabled, respectively. For example,

```php
[
    'class' => 'yii\rest\UrlRule',
    'controller' => 'user',
    'except' => ['delete', 'create', 'update'],
],
```

You may also configure `patterns` or `extraPatterns` to redefine existing patterns or add new patterns supported by this rule.
For example, to support a new action `search` by the endpoint `GET /users/search`, configure the `extraPatterns` option as follows,

```php
[
    'class' => 'yii\rest\UrlRule',
    'controller' => 'user',
    'extraPatterns' => [
        'GET search' => 'search',
    ],
```

You may have noticed that the controller ID `user` appears in plural form as `users` in the endpoints.
This is because [[yii\rest\UrlRule]] automatically pluralizes controller IDs for them to use in endpoints.
You may disable this behavior by setting [[yii\rest\UrlRule::pluralize]] to be false, or if you want
to use some special names you may configure the [[yii\rest\UrlRule::controller]] property. Note that the pluralization of RESTful endpoints does not always simply add an "s" to the end of the controller id.  A controller whose ID ends in "x", for example "BoxController" (with ID `box`), has RESTful endpoints pluralized to `boxes` by [[yii\rest\UrlRule]].