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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!

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  • You mean the second url that you've said works, returns some kind of response? Commented Aug 22, 2015 at 7:12

2 Answers 2

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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/....

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5 Comments

Hi @patricus I understand. Let me try!
@TheRealPapa That encoding doesn't matter. The Laravel router decodes the url before parsing it. You can't have slashes in route parameters (encoded or not).
@TheRealPapa I have added another alternative for you to try, if you really need the data as a route parameter vs query parameter.
I just built it like your first suggestion (which makes a lot of sense) but I get an error where the code ties to assign a value from $request. The $request->input('u') fails, and $request contains an instance of a class and not any of the parameter values
@TheRealPapa That's really a new question. Can you post a new question showing the updated route and the controller code? Comment here to let me know when you've posted it so I can try to help. Also, if you feel this answer answered your original question, please mark it as such, so that future searchers can know at a glance it is helpful.
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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);
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1 Comment

Hi Ahmad, thanks for the reply. The url is being entered by a user in a form field. The Ajax is for checking its validity and that it meets certain format requirements. I need to pull the url from the input and pass it to a server script. Laravel does not generate the url for me. I think I may not have been clear enough in my question. I will ammend. Did I misunderstand your suggestion?

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