Laravel route pass variable to controller

I feel like the tidiest way to do this is probably with route constraints:

Route::get('{milk}', [ 'as' => 'milk', 'uses' => 'ProductsController@index' ])
     ->where('milk', 'milk'); // matches the named arg {milk} (param 1)
                              // to the regex literal 'milk' (param 2)

It has some redundancy, but if you want to do it purely from your routes, I'd go with this.

For making SEO-friendly names though, you could use Sluggable to generate a unique slug for each product, then create the following route:

Route::get('{product}', [ 'as' => 'product', 'before' => 'product-slug', 'uses' => 'ProductsController@index' ])
     ->where('product', '[a-z0-9]+[a-z0-9\-]*'); // valid slug syntax

And this filter:

Route::filter('product-slug', function($route) {
    $slug = $route->getParameter( 'slug' );
    if (is_numeric($slug)) { // if the slug is an ID
        $product = Product::findOrFail($slug); // try to find the product
        return Redirect::route('product', $product->slug); // and redirect to it
    }
});

I have used this to pass values to the controller...

route:

Route::get('user/{user}/usermanage',  array('as' => 'userdata.usermanage',       'uses' => 'yourController@getUserDetails'));
//{user} - holds some value...

in controller:

public function getUserDetails($id)
{
    ...
}

if want dynamic :

$var    =   "Lists"; 

Route::get('something',        array('as' => 'something',      'uses' => 'yourController@get'.$var));

hope this helps...

You can use a closure for your route and then call the controller action:

Route::get('/milk', array('as' => 'milk', function(){
    return App::make('ProductsController')->index(1);
}));

However, a nicer way would be to use a where condition and then do the type-to-id conversion in the controller. You will lose the direct alias though and would have to pass in the product as parameter when generating the URL.

Route::get('{product}', array('as' => 'product', 'uses' => 'ProductsController@index'))
    ->where('product', '(milk|cheese)');