Load Routes From Routes.ini Config File In Zend Application Bootstrap

I spent waaaay to many hours trying to load routes via a config file in Zend Framework 1.10 and I think this might be a problem with the documentation I was following on the Zend Framework site. More on that later, let’s get to my solution first.

Here is the use case I am addressing: I want to store routes in a .ini file and have this file loaded via the Application Bootstrap. Zend Application allows me to store these in the application.ini file but I have a large number and want to store them separately.

First create your routes.ini file:

[production]
routes.linkA.route = "linkA"
routes.linkA.defaults.controller = "linkB"
routes.linkA.defaults.action = "linkBAction"

Where linkA is the incoming route and linkB is the outgoing route

New let’s add the function to load this file in the Bootstrap. Add the following to your boostrap.php:

protected function _initRewrite() {
    $front = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance();
    $router = $front->getRouter();

    $config = new Zend_Config_Ini(APPLICATION_PATH . '/configs/routes.ini', 'production');      
    $router->addConfig($config,'routes');
}

That’s it, everything should be working :-)

The above use case is addressed in the Zend Framework Documentation but I could not get their example to work:

http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.controller.router.html

{% blockquote http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.controller.router.html %} Using Zend_Config with the RewriteRouter

Sometimes it is more convenient to update a configuration file with new routes than to change the code. This is possible via the addConfig() method. . . . $config = new Zend_Config_Ini(’/path/to/config.ini’, ‘production’); $router = new Zend_Controller_Router_Rewrite(); $router->addConfig($config, ‘routes’); {% endblockquote %}

No matter how hard I tried I could not get the above to work. It is very simple code but there are no instructions on where this can/should be run. Maybe this can’t be run from the bootstrap? I even wrote a plugin and but no matter what I tried I could not get this to work using Zend_Controller_Router_Rewrite().

It is also possible that I completely mis-understood the documentation and got all mixed up, I struggle with Zend Documentation sometimes.

If you figure out how to do this using Zend_Controller_Router_Rewrite() please leave a comment it was driving me nuts!