Basic Routes: Actix Web Documentation

# Basic Routes

In Actix Web, routing is the mechanism that maps incoming HTTP requests to specific handler functions. The framework provides a simple yet powerful pattern-matching language to ensure that the correct block of code executes when a user accesses a particular URL.

#Why Routing Matters

Without routing, your application wouldn't know how to differentiate a request for the homepage from a request to submit a form. Routing serves as the entry point to your application's logic.

#Defining Routes

Actix Web provides several ways to define routes. The most straightforward approach uses the route macro, but you can also define routes manually using web::route().

code_blocksrust

use actix_web::{get, web, App, HttpServer, Responder};

#[get("/")]
async fn index() -> impl Responder {
    "Hello, World!"
}

async fn manual_route() -> impl Responder {
    "This is a manually configured route."
}

You can register these routes when initializing the App in your HttpServer::new closure. It's considered a best practice to keep your handler logic separated from the routing configuration, especially in larger applications.

#Trailing Slashes

By default, Actix Web handles trailing slashes strictly. A request to /about will not match a route defined as /about/. You can use middleware to normalize paths if you prefer a more lenient approach.

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Reference Implementation

The following code snippet demonstrates the authoritative pattern for this documentation.

src/main.rs

Edition 2024

1use actix_web::{get, web, App, HttpServer, Responder};
2 
3#[get("/hello")]
4async fn hello() -> impl Responder {
5    "Hello from Actix Web!"
6}
7 
8async fn about() -> impl Responder {
9    "About page"
10}
11 
12#[actix_web::main]
13async fn main() -> std::io::Result<()> {
14    HttpServer::new(|| {
15        App::new()
16            .service(hello)
17            .route("/about", web::get().to(about))
18    })
19    .bind(("127.0.0.1", 8080))?
20    .run()
21    .await
22}
23