Laravel pagination pretty URL

Here’s a hacky workaround. I am using Laravel v4.1.23. It assumes page number is the last bit of your url. Haven’t tested it deeply so I’m interested in any bugs people can find. I’m even more interested in a better solution 🙂

Route:

Route::get('/articles/page/{page_number?}', function($page_number=1){
    $per_page = 1;
    Articles::resolveConnection()->getPaginator()->setCurrentPage($page_number);
    $articles = Articles::orderBy('created_at', 'desc')->paginate($per_page);
    return View::make('pages/articles')->with('articles', $articles);
});

View:

<?php
    $links = $articles->links();
    $patterns = array();
    $patterns[] = "https://stackoverflow.com/".$articles->getCurrentPage().'\?page=/';
    $replacements = array();
    $replacements[] = '';
    echo preg_replace($patterns, $replacements, $links);
?>

Model:

<?php
class Articles extends Eloquent {
    protected $table="articles";
}

Migration:

<?php

use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;

class CreateArticlesTable extends Migration {

    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('articles', function($table){
            $table->increments('id');
            $table->string('slug');
            $table->string('title');
            $table->text('body');
            $table->timestamps();
        });
    }

    public function down()
    {
        Schema::drop('articles');
    }
}