Best way to check if a controller exists in a custom route matching

Hi guys,

I want to achieve the following behaviour:

• Use the default configuration of Phalcon router
• Allow custom routes to be set in the database
• Custom routes and the default route can have the same pattern (conflict)
• Custom routes set in the database can't match a controller name (to avoid conflict)
• Default routes have priority

I want it to be as performant as possible since almost all hits will pass through this route. I want to avoid unecessary filesystem checks and database trips. I was looking for a method within Phalcon to check if a controller exists, but I couldn't find one so I decided to use is_file.

Here is my implementation. If the route matches an existing controller, I simply fail the route and let Phalcon use the default route resolution. If a controller doesn't exist then I redirect to a custom controller (Profile) that will eventually check if the route is set in the database.

$router->add('/([a-z\d.]{6,})/:params', [
    "controller" => "profile",
    "action" => "index",
    "username" => 1,
    "params" => 2
])->beforeMatch(function($uri, $route) use ($di) {
    if (preg_match($route->getCompiledPattern(), $uri, $match)){
        $username = $match[1];
        $controller = ucfirst(strtolower($username));

        if(is_file($di['config']->application->controllersDir . $controller . 'Controller.php')){
            return false;
        }
    }

    return true;
});

Any thoughts? Suggestions?