Using Router::connectNamed without breaking pagination

In cakePHP, you can pass all sort of parameters to your urls by following the www.domain.com/controllers/view/foo:bar/foo2:baz syntax.

You could then access $this->params['foo'] and $this->params['foo2'] in your Controller::view() method.

Using Router::connectName()

This does not play nice with default routing. I mean, if you define a route to add a vanity url like www.domain.com/vanity is routed to Controller:view(), you'll write something like this:

Router::connect('/vanity', array('controller' => 'controllers', 'action' => 'view'));

This will work as long as you don't specify any additional parameters. Once you started to add any parameters, the Router won't be able to parse your url and instead of returning www.domain.com/vanity/foo:bar/foo2:baz it will return the default www.domain.com/controllers/view/foo:bar/foo2:baz

If you do want your custom parameters to be taken into account by your Router rules, you have to manually add them, using Router::connectNamed(array('foo', 'foo2')).

Custom connectNamed()

I'll let you browse the connectNamed() documentation page for further details on how to use it properly. But one important thing not to overlook is that if you ever have to define a custom Router::connectNamed(), do not forget to add a second parameter of array('default' => true), this will allow all your paginated links to keep working.