How about {id?} instead of :id: convention for an optional parameter about crossroads.js HOT 6 CLOSED

I thought about it as well, but since on RegExp the ? is only referent to previous char or group than I thought it would be a better idea to have a separate token.

/foo? bar/;    // matches "foo bar" and "fo bar"
/(foo?) bar/;  // matches "foo bar" and "fo bar"
/(foo)? bar/;  // matches "foo bar" and " bar"

note that the ? is outside the group when the group is optional..

also see issue #33 (query string support), it will start getting too complex and will cause more confusions than it solves. BTW : and {} are invalid char in the middle of an URI (: is reserved for the protocol/port) and {} is forbidden without being escaped (RFC 3986)

from crossroads.js.

One more thing.. wouldn't it make sense to have a route always be a String in addition to which you could optionally add constraints. For example:

.addRoute('articles/{date}_{title}', { date: '\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}', title: '[\w_]+'});
.addRoute('products/{category}', { category: 'books|dvds'});

This way it shouldn't be a problem using optional parameters like this:

.addRoute('{controller}/{action}/{id?}')

Another convention could be:

// {id*} matches the rest of the path including / symbols
.addRoute('{controller}/{action}/{id*}')

You could also specify a delegate instead of regex for constraints:

.addRoute('products/{category}', { category: function(c) { $.ajax(..) or whatever } })

from crossroads.js.

Also I think users shouldn't worry about query strings and hashes (#bla-bla), if there are any routing tool should handle them for you automatically. For example:

.addRoute('{controller}/{action}', function(controller, action, queryString} { .. });

from crossroads.js.

you can kinda do what you want on the constraints:

var route = crossroads.addRoute('/articles/{date}_{title}');
route.rules = {
  date : /\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}/,
  title : /[\w_]+/
};

It allows RegExp, functions or an Array...

I find that the validation rules are less common than adding a listener to the route, that's why it isn't the second argument of addRoute().

also in some cases you may not need to validate one of the segments and/or you might need need to validate the string as a group, I decided that an object would be more flexible, see the example on the documentation for a complex use case.

There is also the option to pass the route as an RegExp instead of a String.

About query string and hashes there is already a feature request for it, see #33. (the first comment has an example on how to implement it on the current version), the problem with automagical approaches is that they are less flexible (eg, a query string inside the hash, order of arguments, etc...)

I created a new issue asking only for the {id*} (#43) - it's easier to track individual issues than a single thread with lots of things..

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forgot to say, you have the option to set a route as an RegExp only because in some cases it might be easier and it doesn't affect crossroads complexity (in fact it's simpler since the patternLexer can skip some steps).

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I'm going to close this issue for now, please post feature requests as individual issues that way I can reference them in commits, create branches that implement each feature, etc.. I've been very busy lately so not sure when I will have time to implement new features (specially the ones I don't need at the moment). Will try to release v0.8.0 next month and it should include most of the stuff listed on the issue tracker right now. thanks for the feedback and features suggestion.

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