Absolute SEF url with JRoute

Question

I'm trying to figure out why I can't get a correct absolute SEF url with JRoute.

I tried with this:

JRoute::_(JUri::root().'index.php?Itemid=164')

but it won't correctly SEF render it, it will just print like this

http://mysite.com/index.php?Itemid=164` 

If I remove the JUri::root() part it will render correctly, but as a relative url ofc.

Any suggestion? What am I doing wrong? Am I misunderstanding from the docs

_(string $url, boolean $xhtml = true, integer $ssl = null) : string

Arguments

$url: Absolute or Relative URI to Joomla resource.

Answer 1

You could try this way:

$itemid = 164;
$application = JFactory::getApplication();
$menu = $application->getMenu();
$item = $menu->getItem( $itemid );
$link = new JURI( $item->link );
$link->setVar( 'ItemId', $itemid );

echo JRoute::_( $quoteLink, true, -1 ); ?>

From JRoute documentation:

Routing URLs**

The JRoute::_ method translates the internal Joomla! URL to a custom URL. JRoute::_ has three parameters and its prototype is:

JRoute::_($url, $xhtml = true, $ssl = null);

Where:

$url is a string containing the absolute or relative internal Joomla! URL.

$xhtml is a boolean value that specifies whether or not the output should be in XHTML. This parameter is optional and if omitted defaults to true.

$ssl is an integer value that specifies whether the URI should be secure. It should be set to 1 to force the URI to be secure using the global secure site URI, 0 to leave it in the same state as when it was passed, and -1 to force the URI to be unsecure using the global unsecure site URI.

It's not obvious from this documentation, but using **$ssl = -1** will force an insecure URI, something like http://joomlasite.com

Update for your comment:

Another option could be the following:

echo JUri::root() . trim( JRoute::_( $quoteLink ), '/' );

A little «hacky», but it does the work... ;)

Answer 2

You can also use proper way to get full url as:

$config = JFactory::getConfig();
$mode = $config->get('force_ssl', 0) == 2 ? 1 : (-1);
echo JRoute::_('index.php?Itemid=164',false,$mode);

Answer 3

You can not achieve it the way you trying to because if you look at the router code:

link that starts with index.php should be passed, not with http(s)

The correct way to achieve routing is:

JRoute::_('index.php?Itemid=164')

If you would like to have absolute sef url you need to prepend root after:

JUri::root().JRoute::_('index.php?Itemid=164')

Answer 4

UPDATE 2021

It seems that somewhere around version 3.9.7, they included a fourth parameter in this function, so now the function definition is:

public static function _($url, $xhtml = true, $tls = self::TLS_IGNORE, $absolute = false)

So you can call it like this:

JRoute::_('index.php?Itemid=164', true, 0, true);

The fourth argument forces the URL to be absolute.

This is probably also backwards compatible, because PHP silently disregards additional arguments for user-defined functions. However, you'll still have to solve it somehow for versions earlier than 3.9.7.