Chapter 8
Routes and Controllers
Every web application needs to answer a fundamental question: when a user visits a URL or submits a form, what code should run? Without a structured approach, you end up with spaghetti code mixing database queries, business logic, and HTML generation in confusing, unmaintainable ways.
UserFrosting uses the MVC (Model-View-Controller) pattern with RESTful routing to cleanly separate concerns. Routes map URLs to controllers, which contain your application logic and coordinate between models (data) and views (presentation). This separation makes your code easier to understand, test, and maintain.
This chapter covers RESTful API design, the front controller pattern, creating controllers for your features, and securely handling user input. You'll learn to build well-structured endpoints that are both powerful and maintainable.