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Installation

Get FastRoute up and running in your project in just a few minutes.

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Requirements

FastRoute requires PHP 5.4.0 or higher. For best performance, use PHP 7.4 or later.

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Installing with Composer

1

Ensure Composer is Installed

Make sure you have Composer installed on your system. Verify by running:
composer --version
If Composer is not installed, follow the official installation guide.
2

Create composer.json

In your project root directory, create a composer.json file with the FastRoute dependency:
composer.json
{
    "require": {
        "nikic/fast-route": "^1.3"
    }
}
The ^1.3 version constraint ensures you get the latest 1.x version with bug fixes and improvements while maintaining compatibility.
3

Install Dependencies

Run Composer to install FastRoute and its dependencies:
composer install
This will create a vendor directory containing FastRoute and Composer’s autoloader.
4

Set Up Autoloading

In your main PHP file (e.g., index.php), require Composer’s autoloader:
index.php
<?php

// Autoload Composer dependencies
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

// Your routing code will go here
This makes all Composer packages, including FastRoute, available in your application.

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Project Structure

For better organization, we recommend structuring your project like this: 
project-root/
├── vendor/              # Composer dependencies
├── routes/              # Route definition files
│   ├── api.php         # API routes
│   └── web.php         # Web routes
├── views/              # View templates
├── composer.json       # Composer configuration
└── index.php          # Main entry point
Separating routes into different files (API and web) makes your application more maintainable and easier to scale.

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Web Server Configuration

FastRoute requires URL rewriting to route all requests through your main PHP file.

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Apache Configuration

Create an .htaccess file in your project root:
.htaccess
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^ index.php [QSA,L]
For Apache, you must enable AllowOverride All in your virtual host configuration:
/etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf
<Directory /var/www/html>
    AllowOverride All
</Directory>
Then restart Apache: sudo systemctl restart apache2

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Nginx Configuration

Add this to your Nginx server block: 
location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
}

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Verification

To verify the installation, create a simple test in your index.php:
index.php
<?php

require 'vendor/autoload.php';

use FastRoute\RouteCollector;

$dispatcher = FastRoute\simpleDispatcher(function(RouteCollector $r) {
    $r->get('/test', function() {
        echo "FastRoute is working!";
    });
});

echo "Installation successful!";
If you see “Installation successful!” when accessing your site, FastRoute is ready to use.

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Next Steps

Now that FastRoute is installed, let’s create your first routes in the Quickstart Guide.