require_entry problems with more than 2 segment

Question

www.cooking/recipes/apple_pie

The first Expression Engine segment (recipes) represent the recipes channel, and the second segment represent an entry (here apple_pie)

If an entry doesn't exist or is misspelled, i use this code to redirect to the 404 page, and it works fine:

{exp:channel:entries channel="recipes" limit="1" require_entry="yes"}
          {exp:ifelse parse="inward"}
                {if no_results}
                        {redirect="error/404"}
                {/if}
           {/exp:ifelse}
{/exp:channel:entries}

But if I add a segment (dessert), always have redirect to the 404 page, even if the entry exist. Without the redirect code the entries pages like (www.cooking/recipes/dessert/apple_pie) works fine, but i lose the redirect function.

www.cooking/recipes/dessert/apple_pie

What am I doing wrong here?

Answer 1

https://ellislab.com/expressionengine/user-guide/urls/template_routes.html

Template routes! These things are your friend. On your template, you want to set a template route that looks like this:

/recipes/{section:category}/{section:alpha_dash}

Set that template to require all routes. Then bam:

{exp:channel:entries channel="{segment_1}" category="{segment_2}" url_title="{segment_3}" limit="1" require_entry="yes"}
      {exp:ifelse parse="inward"}
            {if no_results}
                    {redirect="error/404"}
            {/if}
       {/exp:ifelse}
{/exp:channel:entries}

This should do the trick, no?

Answer 2

Based on my understanding of the issue...

Try this:

{exp:channel:entries channel="recipes" url_title="{if segment_2 != 'dessert'}{segment_2}{if:else}{segment_3}{/if}" limit="1" require_entry="yes" dynamic="no"}

If there's only dessert category then I think this should work, unless you have other categories, then you'll have to update the if statement.